The high school students, who are demanding in particular replacement teachers and more resources, hope to play “act two” of their protest, punctuated by violence, on Thursday with the students who should join them. The movement, which began about a week ago, affected 356 establishments throughout France on Wednesday, compared to 338 on Tuesday, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
On Wednesday alone, 625 people were arrested and 83 police officers and gendarmes injured. Since the start of the blockades, 119 students and staff have been injured, according to the report communicated Wednesday by Édouard Geffray.
The president of the USL, the High School Union, Ryad Rani, called on Wednesday during a joint press conference in Paris with the Student Union, for an “act two” asserting common demands. With the general secretary of the second student union, Eloïse Lefebvre-Milon, they call on “all trade union, associative and political organizations to join (them) in the mobilization” Thursday and Tuesday, October 6, and demand “massive financing of high schools and universities”.
Unef, the third student organization, also calls on students “to take to the streets everywhere in France” against the “massive elimination of places in universities” and the freezing of APL in particular. The government tried on Wednesday to put an end to the spread of the movement by announcing the opening of a “consultation platform” to which “all high school students will be able to contribute”. They will be able to submit their demands and concerns in a territorialized manner.
Emmanuel Macron insisted on Wednesday that the mobilization of high school students in France did not justify “violence” and that political leaders were “not there to stir up fears and make the worst happen”, comments aimed at the leaders of a left-wing party.
The mobilization started from several high schools in the Parisian suburbs about a week ago with the stated support of La France insoumise (LFI, radical left) to ask for more resources. It comes seven months before the presidential election.
“I hear and I understand the anxieties sometimes, the anger that our youth can have (...) On the other hand, none of these debates, none of these fears legitimizes violence. And under no circumstances can political leaders (..) legitimize outright violence,” declared the French president during a press conference in Madrid alongside Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
The political leaders “are there because there is a democratic mandate, because they were elected in a calm manner, in an organized framework, and they are not there to stir up fears and make the worst happen,” he added.
The IGPN, the “police of the police”, was seized of three investigations after high school students were injured during blockades of establishments, indicated the Minister of the Interior Laurent Nuñez, according to whom the police intervened “with a lot of proportionality”. “These are minors who are facing the police. Obviously, there is a very proportional use of “intermediate weapons”, in particular tear gas, continued the minister.
These investigations concern events which took place in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis), Saint-Ouen-L'Aumône (Val-d'Oise) and Tours, where a young man was injured in the head on Wednesday and was hospitalized. According to the prosecutor, his injuries are “compatible” with an LBD shot.
