French high school protests intensified on Tuesday as students set fires outside school buildings and confronted police, disrupting classes and forcing the closure of about 400 schools across the country.
The demonstrations began last week in the Paris region before spreading rapidly nationwide. Teenagers in their final years of lycée have blocked entrances, preventing access to buildings, and engaged in clashes with police.
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Students say their school days are too long and that facilities are poorly maintained, with some classrooms unbearably hot. They also complain that staff shortages caused by frequent absences are putting further strain on schools.
The government has acknowledged that the students’ complaints are valid, but it has condemned the unrest as “urban violence”.
In Paris, fires damaged the entrances of two high schools on Tuesday: Leonard de Vinci in the south of the capital and Gaston-Bachelard in the southeast. Firefighters were called to put out the flames, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.
‘Held hostage’
Education Minister Edouard Geffray said “the high school student movement is being held hostage by ultra-violent fringe groups”. He said nearly 400 of the country’s 3,700 high schools were expected to be closed on Tuesday.
Many schools, particularly in the southern city of Marseille, have also prepared to move lessons online.
At least 65 staff members have been injured since the protests began, including 40 high school principals, Mr Geffray told BFMTV.
About 170 students have also been hurt, while more than 100 high schools have sustained “severe damage”.
“Parents must clearly step up and tell their children not to go” to the demonstrations, he said.
“What matters now is ensuring our children are no longer out on the streets, because they are in danger.”
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said he had asked prosecutors to make parents responsible for damage allegedly caused by their children during the protests and to require them to “pay for repairs”.
Since the movement began, around 2,000 people have been taken into police custody” – 90% of whom were minors”, Darmanin told RTL.
‘We’ve won’
In the western city of Rennes, tensions were already running high outside Jean-Mace high school. Students dressed in black and wearing balaclavas gathered near a substantial police presence.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’ve won – our school is closed this morning,” said one 16-year-old student.
She accused police of using excessive force. “It makes us even angrier – the police have no right to hit us or use tear gas on us.”
Police fired tear gas at Kerichen high school in Brest, in western France, an AFP photographer reported.
The unrest has also reverberated through national politics, coming just over half a year before the presidential election. The government has accused the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), whose firebrand leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is once again running for president, of helping drive the protests.
But Manuel Bompard, a senior LFI official, accused the government of “descending into conspiracy theories”.
Seeking to lower tensions, Mr Geffray said he would meet education unions and high school student associations on Tuesday in an effort to establish common ground for dialogue.
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