Fires and tensions during high school mobilizations in several cities in France

Masked individuals throwing projectiles at the facade of the high school. Then, moments later, a dumpster fire spread throughout the establishment. The Mandela high school in Nantes was the victim of an arson attack on Thursday October 1st. The fire started before the eyes of stunned high school students. “When the first fire broke out, there were still people inside and just in front of the door,” says one of them. “When we found ourselves facing the fire, seeing the big fire starting, we were still afraid for the people who were still inside.”

In another establishment in Nantes, there was the shocking scene of a high school student being burned in front of his classmates. In Bordeaux, mortar fire then a fire, again, on the facade of a high school took place before the firefighters intervened. And the high school students, although angry, do not seem to condone this damage. “In itself, they could have made a small fire on the road, it would have had the same effect, I think... There, burning down the establishment is a bit hot,” regrets a teenager. “It was not the high school students who started the fire, it was people who came just to burn everything,” assures another.

In the morning, arrests took place in Rennes and even in Toulouse, where scuffles broke out. One truck even had its tools stolen before having to flee. In Marseille, a fire truck was set on fire. In Saint-Denis, university students joined the movement, a way according to them to support the demands of high school students. “It’s a way of telling them that we are not going to abandon them, that we are all here together,” confides a student. Faced with the crisis, an interministerial meeting chaired by Sébastien Lecornu is planned for the day.