THOUSANDS of students have been arrested after rioters set fire to schools and allegedly attacked teachers in a wave of shock protests across France.
Wild scenes have grown in scale and ferocity over the country as students continue set up barricades, ransack buildings and igniting fires over claims of rat and cockroach-infested classrooms.
It is reported thousands students – several under 16 – have been arrested following clashes with the police.
France’s prime minister convened a crisis meeting on Thursday, calling for ministers’ trips to be cancelled as they focus on the containing the nationwide spread of mayhem.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez condemned what he called an “escalation of violence” outside certain schools, France D.W reports.
The demonstrations kicked off on September 21 near the start of the academic year at a school in Créteil, a Paris suburb, and have snowballed from there.
The protests have since spread across the country from the Paris suburbs, with the government accusing hard-left politicians of encouraging the unrest.
They accuse Far-left presidential hopeful Jean-Luc Mlenchon’s party of seeking to use the unrest to score points in the presidential campaign and of inciting violence.
Police have allegedly been attacked amid the mayhem – with students reportedly shooting fireworks and setting security forces on fire.
In Marseilles, staff were drenched in gasoline at the Victor-Hugo high school, including the headmaster and deputy.
Shocking clips also appeared to show a fireman engulfed in flames after an aerosol can exploded outside a Bordeaux school.
The Nelson Mandela High School in Nantes was going up in a raging blaze in separate clip.
A headteacher was reportedly struck in the leg by a firework at the Jean-Pierre Timbaud school in Paris in one suspected assault.
Another principal was hit on the head by a teenager who didn’t even attend the school he worked at, reports say.
And one young protester suffered debilitating hand injures after incorrectly firing a rocket.
At least 360 schools have been disrupted and 85 cops have been injured, authorities say.
Another 119 pupils and students have also been injured since the chaos broke out.
Allegations of police brutality have also surged amid the chaos.
A student, 14, reportedly lost several teeth after an officer fired a tear-gas grenade into his jaw from point-blank range.
Police have launched an investigation into the ordeal – with prosecutors arguing the teen had allegedly assaulted a policewoman beforehand.
Raging protests have spread beyond Paris and into several French cities including Lille, Bordeaux, and Lyon.
French president Emmanuel Macron has called for an end to the violence.
He said on Wednesday: “I can hear and understand the anxieties and anger that our youth can feel.
“However, none of these fears legitimises violence.
The French leader has accused “many political leaders” of fanning the flames by going to schools “to whip up the pupils”.
It comes amid reports that authorities were warned by intelligence services that political groups on France‘s hard-Left had encouraged the demonstrations.
A leaked note obtained by French outlet BFMTV read: “The origins of this movement lie in an instrumentalisation by student union structures and political movements close to the far-Left.”
Pupils and unions argue they are genuinely upset by the crumbling school system in France.
Raphael, a 17-year-old who did not give his surname for fear of reprisals, was among the protesters outside a school in Strasbourg.
Explaining his reasons for protest, he said: “There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35C in summer, it’s unbearable.
“There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms.
“The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.”
Back-to-school protests, however, are not uncommon and usually take place around this time every year – with police clashes and barricades regularly reported.
But this time the violence has been taken up a notch.
Masked outsiders, fireworks and social media posts have all helped exacerbate the spiralling frenzy.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/17083134/france-fire-students-attack-teachers-protests/
