1,260 People Arrested as French Student Protests Intensify
Istanbul (ANTARA) — A total of 1,260 people have been arrested in the Paris metropolitan area since student protests began in France, 86 per cent of them minors, Paris police said on Thursday (15 October).
Students continue to blockade several secondary schools and universities in various parts of France, according to French broadcaster BFMTV. The government is facing renewed pressure to respond to their demands ahead of a national demonstration scheduled for Saturday.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray said protests were continuing at around 200 secondary schools nationwide.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the protests no longer represented a student movement but had become an “urban violence movement”. He condemned “truly appalling calls for violence” in several areas.
Lecornu said regional councils would be consulted on issues concerning school buildings. He also criticised violent incidents at the end of demonstrations.
Geffray said the government was reviewing the entire university admissions process through Parcoursup, France’s higher education application platform.
Policy measures on the matter are expected to be finalised by the end of October.
“The time to make decisions is approaching, but for now we are continuing to work on it,” he said during a visit to a secondary school in Gradignan, south-western France.
Geffray also said the government had placed two-thirds of the 3,000 substitute teachers it had promised in schools. He said the number of secondary schools classified as facing particular difficulties had fallen from 114 last Thursday to 47 this Thursday.
Geffray hoped that no secondary schools would remain in the “red zone” when teaching resumes after the autumn break.
Student representatives were due to meet Geffray again at the Ministry of Education on Thursday at 5.30pm local time (10.30pm WIB).
At a previous meeting on 8 October, student organisations Les Lyceens! and Union syndicale lyceene called for the protests to continue.
Protests have also spread to HEC Paris, a business school in Jouy-en-Josas, western France. Students there demonstrated in support of secondary school pupils, in what was described as the first such action since the movement began.
The Lyon prefecture banned a student demonstration scheduled for Thursday morning, citing the risk of further public disorder, damage to businesses and violence against security personnel, as seen during previous protests.
Blockades are continuing at several schools and universities in Paris, Marseille and the Lyon region.
In its latest report on the situation, the Paris police prefecture said 286 police officers and French gendarmes, as well as 13 education staff, had been injured.
“Violent acts are recurring and growing in intensity,” the prefecture said, adding that 71 members of the internal security forces were injured during demonstrations on 13 October.
According to the report, some people uprooted paving stones and threw them at police officers and French gendarmes. Several officers had to be taken to hospital for emergency treatment.
Meanwhile, staff at Paul-Eluard secondary school in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, condemned what they described as a “violent” police intervention on school grounds when officers sought to arrest a student. They alleged that some officers had struck school staff who tried to prevent the arrest.