French teenagers blockading their schools in protest at class sizes, teacher shortages and long timetables have clashed with police, as politicians traded verbal blows over how to respond.
Demonstrations that began in Paris last week have escalated and spread across France, with the authorities reporting the arrests of 164 people on Monday.
On Tuesday, high school pupils in Lille, northern France, set fire to dustbins and threw bottles, paving stones and other projectiles at police, who responded with teargas after protesters vandalised bus shelters and advertising hoardings.
There were confrontations between children and police in Bordeaux, Rennes and Nantes in western France, and Marseille in the south. At the Lamartine lycée, in the north of Paris, students waved placards complaining they had exhausting timetables. One read: “8am-6pm. More hours of lessons than sleep.”
On Monday, the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said protests had broken out at 180 schools, and 12 officers, 12 students and three school staff had been injured.
By midday on Tuesday, the education ministry was reporting protests at 300 high schools, a further 40 arrests and that 10 students and staff had been injured.
The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said earlier that escalating the demonstrations would be “irresponsible”. He posted on X: “Fireworks, fires, violence near high schools: nothing justifies endangering students staff or police.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), responded to ministers’ instructions to police, posting on X on Monday: “The high school students protesting are harmless. The Lecornu government has ordered a crackdown. This brutality is irresponsible and has a clear racist undertone. Hands off our youth. Elected officials and France Unbowed activists, step in wherever you can.”
Lecornu, responding on X, called Mélenchon’s intervention an “irresponsible escalation”. “The duty of an elected official of the republic is to protect young people and call for calm. Exploiting their anger for partisan purposes is wrong,” he wrote.
He added that Mélenchon’s accusation of racism was “an insult”.
The protests came as French unions went on strike over the government’s budget plans, which include €54m in public spending cuts. Many public sector workers stopped work on Tuesday, including an estimated 40% of primary school teachers.
Ryad Rani, president of the Union Syndicale Lycéene (the high school students’ union) had called for a total blockade of France’s high schools as a parallel action but urged protesters to “remain peaceful”. He said the union was protesting about a “general lack of resources, overcrowded classrooms of sometimes 32-35 students and the shortage of teachers and staff”.
He said a circular sent by the interior and the education ministries to the police, telling them to maintain public order outside high schools “with a proportionate use of force”, was a “absolute scandal”.
“We’re talking about pupils of 15-18 years old and the government’s only response is automatic and institutionalised repression. It’s unacceptable. High school pupils are taking action to demand fairer and more equitable conditions and they’re being met with the BAC [anti-criminal brigade] and the CRS [riot police],” Rani said.
He added that some teachers and school staff had stood in front of students to protect them from police. “Those are the images you should be showing,” Rani told BFM TV.
Caroline Chevé, secretary general of the main teachers’ union the Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU – Unitary Trade Union Federation), who joined protesters at a march in central Paris on Tuesday, said she understood pupils’ frustration. “They’re facing the same challenges as we are. They’re in overcrowded classrooms. Sometimes they don’t have enough teachers because of staffing shortages. They see the same reality as we do, and they’re angry,” Chevé said.
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