French Interior Minister reports over 5,000 arrests during student protests

More than 5,000 people have been arrested since Monday in protests by French students. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said this on Friday on the French television channel TF1. 1,747 people were arrested on Friday and 1,954 on Thursday.

The Interior Minister explained that around 85 percent of those arrested were minors, most of them students. However, this does not necessarily mean that the young people also attended the schools near which they were arrested.

According to the minister, a total of 735 schools were affected by the protests on Friday, 30 percent fewer than the previous day. There were riots around 158 facilities.

Minister attributes the extent of the protests to social networks

Nuñez explained that the security forces systematically intervened in riots, property damage and acts of violence. He described the scale of the protests as significant and surprising and attributed it, among other things, to social networks and the influence of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI).

Political mobilization gave the movement a certain scale, Nuñez said. However, the violence was completely lost on those responsible. A video that caused a stir on Friday showed a police officer being thrown to the ground and kicked. Student representatives distanced themselves from violence, but at the same time called for the protests to continue.