DM Monitoring
LONDON: Riot police clashed with high school students in cities across France on Friday, as President Emmanuel Macron’s government battled to contain increasingly violent protests over classroom conditions and funding.
Tear gas clouded the streets in the eastern city of Strasbourg, fireworks were aimed at police lines in Marseille in the south and rubbish bins set ablaze in Rennes in the west. In Paris, where there were also skirmishes, students waved placards reading “We have a future to build, not to endure”.
Six months before next year’s presidential election, opinion polls consistently show the deep unpopularity of Macron and his centre-right-leaning government. Planned budget cuts, which exacerbate the funding crisis in education, have fuelled the discontent. The protests erupted in the Paris region last week but have turned increasingly violent as they spread nationwide.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin told RTL radio that police had arrested 2,000 people, most of them teenagers, since the protests began. He said that parents of those inflicting damage to property should be made to pay reparations.
Four hundred high schools — roughly 1 in 10 — were closed on Friday due to the unrest and Education Minister Edouard Geffray urged parents to dissuade their children from protesting in the streets.
“In the streets, the children are in danger,” Geffray told media.
Several students in the Paris region whom Reuters spoke to outside high schools earlier in the week said they were staying away from the protests on Friday due to the escalating violence.
Darmanin said the student protest movement had been hijacked by “outsiders”.
Students blockading their high schools have voiced anger over overcrowding in classrooms, regular shortages of teachers and dilapidated buildings, blaming years of underinvestment.
“We are 35 per class, we don’t have enough chairs in classrooms, the one hour lunch break (is too short) for everyone to get food,” 15-year-old Kesia told media in the Paris suburb of Pantin before running off as the police used tear gas.
Under the draft 2027 budget presented by the government on Thursday, the education budget is set to increase by a below-inflation 1.7% to €65.53 billion, excluding teacher pensions.
Education is traditionally the largest budget item, but that changes next year with debt servicing costs expected to reach €74.5 billion, according to the draft bill.
