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Like hundreds of others around the country, the school was
closed. Authorities began shutting schools last week to take
some steam out of the demonstrations after widespread damage to
schools and mounting injuries among staff, students and police.
French media reported protests in other cities and towns on
Tuesday morning. Flag- and placard-waving demonstrators
responded to labor union calls for workers to march in support
of the high school movement that is rattling the government of
President Emmanuel Macron.
“You say ‘young people are the future’ so listen to them,” read
a handwritten placard attached to a metal barrier outside a
Paris school.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez defended the government's
muscular response, despite a growing list of gruesome injuries
to young protesters blamed on police riot-control weapons. The
latest was Monday, with a 15-year-old who lost a hand, seemingly
ripped off by a police stun grenade.
Nunez said the police response to the protests has been
proportionate in “almost all cases.”
The widespread use of arrests, tear gas and riot-control weapons
against teenagers is fueling defiance and angering some parents
and teachers. Officers have made more than 6,100 arrests, and
715 officers have been injured, Nunez said.
At Hélène Boucher on Tuesday, parents and other adults
positioned themselves between protesters and police keeping
watch.
School blockades and protests began in the Paris region in
mid-September before spreading to other cities and towns.
Demonstrators have voiced a range of grievances, often centering
on a lack of resources and opportunities for students in
disadvantaged schools despite the promise of France’s national
motto: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”
Students have drawn attention to rundown classrooms that lack
basics such as desks and chairs, become sweltering in summer
without air conditioning and, in some cases, are infested with
rats. Other common complaints include staff shortages and
exhausting workloads. French high school students’ compulsory
classroom hours are among the highest in Europe.
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Associated Press journalists John Leicester in Paris and Mike
Corder in The Hague contributed.
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