French teenagers clashed with police on Tuesday as they blockaded and protested at hundreds of high schools across the country, demanding better conditions. The protests, which started in the Ile-de-France region around Paris, have now spread to other cities nationwide. The movement in the lycées, which handle the final years of school in France, has angered the government.
According to the education ministry, 338 schools have been affected by protests or disruptions since the start of the day, with 40 blockaded and 44 facing attempted blockades. There were 40 arrests on Tuesday and 10 people – students and staff – were wounded. The protests are over grievances including timetables, class sizes, and a shortage of teachers, as well as overheated classrooms during the recent heatwaves.
In one lycée in the Paris suburbs, teachers formed a line around protesting students in a bid to protect them from the police. Masked pupils gathered outside the Lycée César Baggio in Lille, in northern France, setting bins on fire, an AFP photographer reported. Bus shelters and advertising billboards were vandalised, with bottles, paving stones, and various objects hurled at police, who responded by firing tear gas.
The actions came as unions planned a day of nationwide demonstrations and strikes over the budget of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron. Union marches were taking place in Paris and other cities, with around one-in-10 teachers striking nationwide and thousands of members of the fire services staging an angry protest in Paris.
Public transport was not badly affected however. The head of the CGT union, Sophie Binet, told BFM TV that "the anger is immense" and warned the government that it must address the demands and revise the draft budget, which she said was "dangerous for the country and is driving us straight into the wall of recession".
Lecornu said on Monday that any escalation of demonstrations at high schools would be "irresponsible" and lashed out at the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, who he accused of encouraging the protests. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 164 arrests took place on Monday and 180 schools were affected, adding that "we cannot tolerate excesses".
In the low-income Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, the district's LFI mayor Bally Bagayoko joined a protest of hundreds of students at the Lycée Paul-Eluard. He described the protests as "completely legitimate" and complained that low-income areas received less resources than higher-income ones. A 16-year-old student, Victoire, denounced conditions at the establishment as "unsanitary" and said "we, the children of the suburbs, are abandoned and neglected".
Key points
- 338 schools affected by protests or disruptions
- 40 arrests made on Tuesday
- Protests sparked by grievances including timetables, class sizes, and teacher shortages
