LIVE - Anger of high school students: test day Wednesday for the government after massive mobilization

The Ministers of the Interior Laurent Nuñez and of National Education Édouard Geffray will be heard on Wednesday by the deputies of the National Assembly, the first on “the management of public order” and the second on “the blocking of high schools”.

Edouard Geffray will be heard at 10 a.m. “on the blocking of high schools” in the Cultural Affairs and Education Committee. Laurent Nuñez will be heard at 3 p.m. by the deputies who are members of the Laws Committee “on the management of public order following high school mobilizations and the protection of people in the face of violence”.

The two ministers have already been questioned at length during questions to the government on Tuesday, where the questions from the deputies largely focused on this high school movement, of which many deputies on the left denounce the “repression”.

Since the start of the movement in mid-September, 215 students have been injured, a majority “either as a result of accidents”, “or by the actions of other external individuals”, according to Matignon. 715 police officers or gendarmes were also injured, according to the same source.

The Minister of Education deplored on Tuesday that the high school students' demands had been “confiscated” by “unspeakable violence”.

“We had 85 staff (...) who were injured in the space of eight days, and this is unprecedented in the history of national education. And we have 24 buildings that were ransacked and burned,” he denounced.

“We therefore have 30,000 students who are deprived of lessons, because some have encouraged or legitimized violence in any form whatsoever,” he added while LFI is widely singled out by the executive who accuses it of “messing up the country” before the presidential election.

In total, 488 people were arrested on Tuesday during the new day of mobilization of the high school movement and 43 members of the police were injured, announced the Ministry of the Interior. Since September 28, according to Beauvau, 6,547 people have been arrested as part of this movement.

For this “Act III” of high school anger, 266,000 people marched in the streets, including 56,000 in Paris, according to the ministry. There were 450,000 who took to the streets throughout France, including 100,000 in the capital, according to high school and student organizations.

During a press briefing following the Paris demonstration, police chief Patrice Faure reported 32 arrests in the afternoon in Paris and 58 in the morning in the Paris metropolitan area.

Considering that it was “fairly little”, the police prefect argued that this showed that “when the demonstration is organized, when a route is defined (...), everything can take place calmly in compliance with the Constitution, with respect for property and people”. He deplored “14 injured”: a police officer (injured by a paving stone hit the back of the neck), a firefighter, and 12 demonstrators including one who “fell five meters” from the statue on Place de la République. “He fell alone, putting himself in danger while climbing” the monument, he said, adding that he was “very seriously injured”.