Students torch at least two schools as high school protests rage across France
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Riot police standing at a distance from a fire involving rubbish bins in Aubervilliers, north of Paris, on Oct 1, as students stage a blockade outside Le Corbusier secondary school. French officials held a crisis meeting on Oct 1 over student protests that are growing increasingly violent.
PHOTO: AFP
- Student protests in France have turned violent, with at least two schools set on fire and teachers accidentally doused with petrol during clashes over staff shortages and poor facilities.
- Authorities report multiple injuries, arrests, and police using teargas, while the government calls for dialogue and remote classes where protests block access.
- Prime Minister held a crisis meeting as protests coincide with unpopular budget cuts, with officials blaming agitators moving between schools to incite violence.
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PARIS - Student protesters started fires in at least two French schools on Oct 1, while teachers were inadvertently splashed with petrol at a third, officials said, amid increasingly violent clashes over staff shortages and dilapidated buildings.
At Marseille’s Victor Hugo high school, the teachers were inadvertently splashed as a student attempted to throw gasoline into a trash bin, local authorities said.
Earlier the prosecutor’s office had said the teachers had been assaulted and “doused in petrol”.
At another school in the city - Saint-Exupery high school - hundreds of young people surrounded a fire truck that had arrived to put out a blaze in the morning, police said.
The attackers forced the firefighters to flee the vehicle, then set it alight.
Another blaze hit a school in the western city of Nantes, fire crews said.
French education minister Edouard Geffray said on the evening of Oct 1 that he would successively meet representative staff unions, parent associations and student associations on Oct 2.
E-scooters burning near a secondary school and train station in Marseille, southern France, on Oct 1.
PHOTO: AFP
PM holds crisis meeting
The demonstrations and blockades, which began last week, have become a political flashpoint at a sensitive moment for the government, which announced a series of deeply unpopular spending cuts in its 2027 Budget on Oct 1.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office held a crisis meeting on the afternoon of Oct 1 on the protests, which have left dozens of people injured.
Hundreds have also been arrested, most of them teenagers, officials have said.
In the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, crowds of young people massed in front of a line of police. One student held up a sign that read: “Can we explain ourselves without being teargassed?”
Students have accused the police of using heavy-handed tactics, including the use of teargas.
An injured protester screaming in front of riot police near a high school in Toulouse, south-western France, on Oct 1, as high school students demonstrate countrywide over what they denounce as poor learning conditions.
PHOTO: AFP
The government has criticised the violence that has broken out during some of the protests, but has said difficulties in high schools should be acknowledged and addressed.
Interior minister Laurent Nunez said that, in some places, troublemakers were moving from school to school to incite violence.
Geffray called for schools to hold classes remotely if protesters were blocking their premises.
“Violence will not keep our students from their fundamental right to an education,” he said, in a post on social media platform X.
In Nantes, Olivier Chateau, a deputy to the mayor, told broadcaster franceinfo that the fire at Nelson Mandela high school was under control and that there had been no injuries.
People in the building had been evacuated, while students due to arrive at the school were turned away, he said.
The mayor’s office declined to comment further. REUTERS