French high school students set fires, clash with police in anger over school conditions

By Joseph Ataman, CNN

Paris (CNN) — High school students across France set fires and clashed with police on Wednesday and Thursday, escalating nearly a week of disruption.

Some 625 people – mostly young – were detained by police on Wednesday, France’s interior minister Laurent Nunez said, adding that 83 police officers had been injured. Government figures put the number of students and teaching staff injured during the days-long protests at 159, including one student who lost part of the use of his hand after setting off a firework.

Videos also surfaced allegedly showing two teachers being attacked by students, provoking condemnation from the French president and officials as well as teaching unions.

Protests began at some French schools last week but picked up Tuesday, with violent scenes overshadowing a nationwide day of protests by unions, workers and students against the upcoming government budget. The situation outside high schools worsened into Wednesday.

On Thursday, clashes with police appeared to intensify in several cities in France, with the Lycée Nelson Mandela set on fire in Nantes and university students joining protests too. France’s prime minister called an inter-ministerial crisis meeting for early afternoon to address the protests.

As President Emmanuel Macron’s government weighs up how to balance historic public debt with already strained state spending, an under-resourced and overstretched education sector is at the root of students’ anger.

Students complain of teachers not being replaced when they leave and schools in a state of serious disrepair.

High schools in poorer suburbs of cities across France have been at the center of the ongoing tensions with police. Toulouse, Nantes, Rennes, Lyon and Lille have all been host to violent confrontations between students and police, as well as arson on or near school property.

Trash cans set alight

In the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, one of France’s most underprivileged areas and the epicenter of violence around Paris, video showed high schoolers setting fires outside the gates of the Lycée Paul Éluard, one of the focal points of violent protests, where students also tore down a section of fencing. Blockades were built and trash cans were set on fire outside a number of schools – a tactic common to major protests.

“There are no windows, in the prefab toilets there’s no water, there are cockroaches and rats everywhere in the school. The school canteen is too expensive, there is no toilet paper in the toilets and we need to go and ask school supervisors to get some,” 17-year-old Fadila, a student at the Lycée Paul Éluard, which is currently undergoing renovations, told Reuters. “The buildings are dilapidated, in winter in the prefab classrooms it’s too cold, its -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and in the summer it’s 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).”

Some 400 schools have been affected nationwide by student blockades, backed in some institutions by teaching staff.

Lawmakers from the far-left France Unbowed party turned up to support protests at numerous schools, including the mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, who told journalists that “violence can be legitimate.”

“Every time we can avoid it, it’s better,” he said, adding that young people should be held accountable for violating the law. But he continued: “They have the right to make a mistake.”

“I understand the anxieties, sometimes the anger that our young people can have,” Macron told journalists during a state visit to Spain on Wednesday.

“However, none of these fears, none of this debate, legitimizes violence. And in no case can those politically responsible (elected officials) – it’s a term that’s perhaps poorly chosen – legitimize violence. We’ve seen lots of politicians in front of schools drumming up students, I think that it’s serious.”

Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, which surrounds and includes Paris, vowed in a post on X on Tuesday night to invoice Bagayoko for the 100,000-euro ($114,000) cost of repairing damage to the Lycée Paul Éluard. She estimated the cost of the protests in the region to total some 1 million euro.

Pepper spray

While Tuesday’s protest marches, led by unions, were largely peaceful, the police response to the protests at schools has been unforgiving, with video showing officers deploying pepper spray on adolescents as well as several instances of policeman aggressively tackling young protesters.

Riot police were met with fireworks near the Lycée Paul Éluard on Tuesday, as anger spread at the police’s response. In one video shared on social media, a teenager was shot in the face with a tear-gas grenade at almost point-blank range by a policeman. A lawyer for family of the 14-year-old boy, identified as Eden L., accused the police of an “explosion of violence” and said that the family was submitting an official complaint to the police.

CNN has reached out to the Saint-Denis police prefecture for comment.

“We want fewer police because we feel there is an excessive amount of police repression, whether against high school student movements or social movements in general, most of which is completely unjustified,” student Mael Breton told Reuters on Tuesday. “We see this as a real problem, especially given the severe budget shortages elsewhere,” he said.

On Thursday, France’s Education Minister Édouard Geffray promised on X to implement online learning for students affected by the disruption. “Violence will not deprive our students of their fundamental right to education,” he said.

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