In France, demonstrations by high school students continue, who in recent days have turned from protests against poor conditions in schools into riots and arson. The government accuses left-wing politicians of justifying and encouraging pogroms.
Education Minister Edouard Geffret said on BFMTV on Friday that 65 school workers, including 40 school principals, were injured in the unrest.
According to the minister, more than a hundred school buildings have been seriously damaged since the protests and arson began.
In addition, according to authorities, 305 police officers were injured and nearly two thousand rioters were arrested.
The French Ministry of Education announced Friday that strikes and blockades have affected 564 of France's 3,700 secondary schools. The day before, Minister Geffre said that the work of 1,207 schools was suspended or terminated, and on Friday he announced that almost 400 schools were closed.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said that a criminal case had been opened in the northeastern city of Belfort for beating a police officer. Nunez wrote on social media X that the officer lost consciousness and was hospitalized, but his condition is not currently of serious concern.
Belfort prosecutor Paul-Edouard Lallois added that a 17-year-old teenager has been arrested in this case, but his role in the attack on the policeman has not yet been clearly established.
"Third Party Vandals"
“Many people believe that the school protest campaign has been hijacked by outside casseurs, vandals,” says BBC Europe editor Paul Kirby.
“Today my school was on fire. OUR school,” Kirby quotes an Instagram post from a student at the Nelson Mandela Lyceum in Nantes. “People from outside came and blockaded the school, the situation went wrong and they set the school on fire.”
Этот поджог был совершен в четверг. При этом, кроме лицея Нельсона Манделы, в Нанте подожгли еще две школы.
A 16-year-old Parisian schoolboy, who introduced himself as Diego, told the BBC that neither he nor other protesters from his school smashed or set anything on fire.
“The guys who are causing trouble are not from our school,” Diego claims.
According to him, he and his friends just want to make noise to change something in the work of the school.
«Это ненормально, что в классе сидят 40 человек два часа подряд. Мы разозлены», — сказал Диего.
Accusations against the left
Deputy Foreign Minister (Minister Delegate) Eleanor Carois said on the BBC that the French far left is trying to use these protests to their advantage.
“There are legitimate requests that we hear and respond to in a civilized manner [...] but it is clear that the far left is turning these children into their tools,” Karua said.
She, in particular, accused the mayors of various cities from the Invictus France party of justifying the riots. Party leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, according to her, says that schoolchildren have the right to protest in any form.
Mélenchon himself rejected the government's accusations and said that the protests were organized by the protesters themselves, and that he was concerned about the use of force by the police against them.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he understood the schoolchildren's outrage, but "no amount of controversy or fear can justify violence."
Macron's head of government, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, said complaints from high school students about difficulties in schools should be heard and responded to, but the riots should also be unequivocally condemned and the perpetrators brought to justice.
The leader of the right-wing National Rally, Marine Le Pen, following members of the government, blamed the left.
“Here we are no longer talking about protests by schoolchildren, here we are talking about riots organized by professionals under the supervision of curators from Unconquered France,” she said.
Выступления школьников поддержали многие профсоюзы. Some of them called for strikes and demonstrations in support of the schoolchildren on October 6, and also encouraged their members to support them in other ways, and the Solidaires trade union federation also issued a statement saying: “We will not allow them to shoot our children.”
Министр предлагает консультации
Education Minister Edouard Geffret met with representatives of the teachers' union on Friday morning and outlined proposals for consultations on ways to resolve the problems that schoolchildren are protesting against.
