Student protests over school conditions continued to spread across France on Friday, with more than 400 schools and colleges closed and police making around 2,000 arrests.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray said 735 teaching establishments were affected in some way, although he noted that the figure was 30% lower than the previous day.
Three emergency services personnel were injured while responding to the unrest, compared with 31 injuries reported the previous day, Geffray said.
He also condemned what he described as occasional acts of extreme violence during the wider protest movement.
Protests spread across France
The protests began at lycées in the Paris region last month over teacher shortages, deteriorating school buildings and a lack of learning materials before spreading across the country this week.
Some of the schools and colleges affected have suffered damage during the demonstrations.
The Lycée Mandela in Nantes was among the worst hit and was expected to remain closed until mid-October after a fire broke out in its entrance hall.
The facade of the Lycée Gaston Bachelard in Paris’ 13th district also suffered severe fire damage on Friday.
Fires were reported at at least two high schools on Thursday, while officials said teachers were inadvertently splashed with petrol at another school in Marseille.
At least one car was torched in Strasbourg, while riot police clashed with youths in Toulouse.
Authorities in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region said at least €25 million in damage had been caused there, while the Ile de France region, which includes Paris, estimated losses at around €7 million.
Police have made around 2,000 arrests, while dozens of people have been injured, including 40 high school principals, according to Geffray.
Government calls for calm
Government ministers have sought to balance messages of understanding towards frustrated young people with calls for calm, as presidential elections approach.
“Calm must urgently return to high schools and universities,” Europe and Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said online.
He said the right to demonstrate was inalienable but described violence as inexcusable and warned against the political instrumentalisation of young people.
Geffray said violent individuals were infiltrating student groups and taking the movement hostage. He also urged parents to prevent their children from joining the protests.
Students, however, have criticised what they regard as a heavy-handed police response.
A placard outside the Lycée Voltaire in central Paris read: “You don’t want to hear our words; you just fire tear gas.”
Geffray met student representatives and trade unions on Friday. Student group leaders subsequently renewed calls for concrete responses to their demands and said protests should continue, while also urging demonstrators to avoid violence and vandalism.
Nahanael Combary of the Renouveau Lycéen group urged high school students to remain non-violent, saying violent incidents could give those seeking to discredit the movement an opportunity to do so.
Government accuses LFI of political involvement
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said French domestic intelligence agencies told a crisis meeting on Thursday that politicians from left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI), or France Unbowed, had instrumentalised the movement.
LFI has denied the allegations.
Veteran LFI leader and 2027 presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has supported the protests while calling on students to use non-violent methods.
He said students, teachers and education staff were facing the same state of neglect and that their positions and demands should be respected, while calling for disciplined action.
Meanwhile, student union bodies have called for a day of mass protest on Tuesday, Oct 6, under the slogan: “Police out of schools! No to the repression of student mobilization!”
The groups said police had no place in front of educational establishments and called for the ongoing mobilisation to be strengthened.
