Blockage of high school students in Île-de-France: 824 arrests recorded by the prefecture

Since the start of the high school blockade movement, 824 people have been arrested in Île-de-France, including “85% of minors,” the Paris police headquarters (PP) told AFP on Saturday. According to the PP, there were 255 arrests on Friday. “90% of those arrested are arrested in their department of residence. They come to degrade, break and hit near their homes. 85% of the individuals arrested are minors, many of them high school students, but not necessarily from the high schools near which they commit abuses,” the police headquarters told AFP.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, denouncing “urban violence” near nearly 160 establishments, announced 1,747 arrests in France for Friday alone and more than 5,000 since Monday. According to the police headquarters, the movement is “pending and rotating”. Thus, in the Paris metropolitan area, the protest began in the inner suburbs, in Val-de-Marne, before spreading to Seine-Saint-Denis, Hauts-de-Seine and finally to Paris on the sidelines, Tuesday, of the day of mobilization for salaries in the public service.

It is not the same establishments that are blocked every day, explains the PP. “From a social protest, we have arrived at actions whose perpetrators use modes of action of urban violence (mortar fire aimed at the police and at national education personnel, damage by means of incendiary devices, barricades, etc.)”, further estimates the police headquarters.