Protests by school pupils across France turned more violent on Friday, as students in several cities lit fires and blocked roads and school entrances. About 400 schools were closed, and teaching was disrupted at at least 564 of the country’s 3,700 high schools. In places police fired tear gas to disperse protesters who threw stones at them.
The movement began in the Paris region in September and spread quickly. High school pupils are protesting about long school days, poor facilities, overheated classrooms and absent teachers and staff.
A 15-year-old pupil at a school in central Paris said his class had had no science teacher for a year and not enough textbooks, and that schools in the suburbs were worse.
In the western city of Brest, police used tear gas when students threw objects at security forces outside the Kerichen high school. In the eastern city of Belfort, a group of young people surrounded and beat a police officer, and a 17-year-old pupil was arrested. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez called the attack intolerable.
Protesters accuse the police of excessive force and say regular use of tear gas has injured many students. Police have opened an internal investigation after allegations that officers beat three protesters. In the southern city of Toulouse, protesters were seen giving each other eye drops after tear gas, and in Aubervilliers, north of Paris, police used batons and riot gear.
The movement is also affecting politics months before the next presidential election. The government accuses the left-wing party France Unbowed of fuelling it; its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is running for president again. The party’s Manuel Bompard rejected the accusation as a “conspiracy theory”.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray said violent groups were trying to take over the students’ movement. At least 65 school staff have been injured since it began, 40 of them head teachers, along with about 170 students, and more than 100 schools have been seriously damaged, he said.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said prosecutors had been told to seek compensation from parents for property damaged by their children during the protests. According to Darmanin, about 2,000 people have been taken into police custody since the movement began, about 90 percent of them minors.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report