Traders from the neighborhoods surrounding Place de la République denounced on Friday the decision of the Police Prefecture to authorize a new demonstration on Saturday departing from this square, considering themselves to be the “recurring victims” of the gatherings organized in eastern Paris.
In a letter addressed to the authorities, several representatives of traders from the areas surrounding Place de la République affirm that the district “is still far from having healed the wounds of the violence of recent weeks”, in reference to the “violent clashes of October 17 and 18 between the police and demonstrators, which were followed by looting”. “In our 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements, the protection of merchants and property has clearly been lacking,” they believe. The representatives calculate a loss of turnover between 20 and 70% “since this new cycle of demonstrations”, describing a “sealed neighborhood, inaccessible streets, businesses deprived of customers”.
“We consider that it is profoundly contrary to the spirit of democratic fairness that the same neighborhoods are systematically designated as gathering places and, consequently, are always the first to bear the consequences of these tensions,” they write, while affirming that they are attached to the right to demonstrate. They also ask that these demonstrations not take place on Saturday, which they present as a crucial day for their activity.
Around forty high schools were blocked on Friday, giving rise to “extremely harsh phenomena of violence” and 154 people were arrested, announced Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez. “41 schools blocked (Friday) morning were counted, it was twice as many yesterday”, summarized the minister who wanted to take stock of the high school movement underway since mid-September, during a press conference in Paris on the security system for the day of social mobilization on Saturday.
According to a police source, 10,500 people took part in 183 actions on Friday as part of the high school and student movement in cities outside Paris. Laurent Nuñez deplored “extremely severe phenomena of violence” in front of blocked educational establishments, with “systematic attacks by internal security forces” during interventions.
Incidents were recorded “in Lyon, in front of the Édouard-Herriot high school where a fire was started, in Pessac (Gironde), in Cugnaux” in Haute-Garonne, where there was “the start of a fire, notably in the hall of the school, in Saint-Jean-de-Braye (Loiret), in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) for the Suger high school, or even in Limoges, where there was witnessed mortars being fired from outside at students who were inside,” he listed, without specifying the name of the establishment in question in Limoges. “Students were injured” during these incidents on Friday, according to the minister.
In Lyon, “a police commander was isolated, thrown to the ground and was violently attacked (...) by around ten individuals”, described the minister for whom it was a “lynching”. During the interventions of the police, 16 of them were injured and “154 arrests” were made, he announced. Police officers and gendarmes will continue to intervene “when there is violence, when there are abuses, to protect educational establishments, protect the students who go to these establishments, who, most of them, attend classes, and protect national education staff,” warned Laurent Nuñez.
Sébastien Lecornu will have an exchange Monday afternoon with representatives of high school students and students, before the first planned meeting of the “reform committee” of the Parcoursup orientation system, Matignon indicated on Friday.
The Prime Minister will bring together on Monday, in the premises of Matignon located on Avenue de Ségur, representatives of high school students and students “for an initial discussion” from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., before a meeting more specifically dedicated to Parcoursup scheduled for 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., which he will attend at least at the beginning, with Ministers Édouard Geffray (Education) and Philippe Baptiste (Higher Education).
This meeting on Parcoursup will be “extended” to union and employer organizations, parent-teacher associations, parliamentarians from both chambers, as well as representatives of higher education establishments. This “committee” will present “first recommendations during November” based on proposals from elected officials, the Prime Minister indicated on Wednesday during a debate organized on this subject in the Senate. Certain proposals may ultimately be the subject of a “bill”.
The Henri Matisse high school in Cugnaux, on the outskirts of Toulouse, was evacuated Friday morning after several “voluntary” fire outbreaks which, however, did not cause “structural” damage, the mayor of the city told AFP, confirming information from the Dépêche du Midi. The fire started from several places - trash cans and two pianos in the establishment - and the approximately 600 students present in the premises were able to evacuate despite a “small panic” after the alarm was triggered, described the mayor, Aurélien Andreu-Seigné.
“To my knowledge, there is no significant material damage,” he said, estimating that the high school, which was not blocked, could “a priori” reopen on Monday. Another high school, in the neighboring town of Tournefeuille, was hit Thursday by a fire started by hooded people. “We think that there is still a phenomenon of training compared to the neighboring high school,” confided Aurélien Andreu-Seigné in this regard, stressing that the Henri Matisse high school had not experienced “any incident until now”.
The deputy principal of a high school in Nancy was sprayed with a fire extinguisher on Friday morning, by a person who had hidden in a trash can, on the sidelines of the student movement, we learned from the rectorate. The deputy principal of the Henri-Poincaré high school in Nancy, who was not injured but was “surprised and shocked”, filed a complaint, and the principal, who was present but more withdrawn at the time of the events, will also do so, the rectorate told AFP, confirming initial information from Ici Lorraine. They will now benefit from functional protection.
In a video shared on the social network A large white cloud instantly covers it. “The reception went rather peacefully” Friday morning but around 8:00 a.m., “a group of individuals approached the establishment with trash cans,” recalls the rectorate.
As the assistant principal approaches to ask them to stop, one of these individuals slaps the trash can. Someone emerges, a fire extinguisher in hand which he discharges towards the assistant principal. This was done “in a relatively direct manner, they were very close”, underlines the rectorate, which condemns, “with the greatest firmness, these intolerable acts of violence”. A teacher, present near the assistant principal, also received the product. Classes were nevertheless held normally in the establishment on Friday.
A post circulating on the social network “A band of militiamen sowing terror. This is once again a shocking and revolting scene committed by the police. It took place in a square in Nantes, after the demonstration on November 5,” writes the Contre Attaque account, with supporting video.
“Contrary to what this publication states, the police did not “rush onto a terrace” to “sow terror”,” retorts the official account of the National Police, which explains that motorcycle police officers on patrol in the city center were “targeted by projectiles.” “One of them tried to arrest a suspect at Place du Pilori, before finding himself surrounded by a hostile group. His colleagues intervened to free him, in turn wiping away stones, glasses and chairs from the terrace of a bar.”
The police specify that an individual who “jumped” on a motorcyclist, causing him to fall and damage to the motorcycle, was “identified”, “arrested” and “placed in police custody”. “The intervention of the police aimed to protect their colleague who was attacked, and not to attack the customers of a terrace.”
A reporter from Politis and a photographer from the Divergences collective will file a complaint after being hit by members of the police during the Thursday demonstration that they were covering in Paris, their lawyer announced to AFP. The Paris prosecutor's office must open an investigation to "identify, among the personnel present, the perpetrators of the violence", demanded Me Chirinne Ardakani, who intends to file a complaint for intentional violence by a person holding public authority and concerted obstruction of freedom of expression.
According to his account, the procession was charged “for no apparent reason and without any form of warning” around 7:00 p.m. at Place de la Nation, at the intersection with Boulevard Dorian (12th arrondissement). The two journalists were “brutally shoved, then hit several times by agents who gave them, among other failed attempts, a violent blow to the head with a baton for Madame Martelet and several blows to the legs, several blows to the shoulder and head for Madame Sudry-le Dû,” specifies the lawyer. They wore a press armband for one, a helmet and a press-branded bag for the other, she specifies.
The Politis reporter “presented a bleeding and abundant wound on her head” and was taken to hospital. A medical certificate attests to “head trauma, several dermabrasions” and other “lesions”, she summarizes. The photographer, wearing a helmet, has “multiple bruises on her shoulders”. This violence “was committed against journalists in the exercise of their duties”, by police officers who could not “ignore that they were facing press professionals”, she denounces.
In a press release, the editorial staff of Politis called on “the entire political class and the media to react”, and said its intention to also file a complaint with the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).
Around fifty university leaders from the Ile-de-France region symbolically marched through Paris on Friday, from the Senate to Matignon, to demand “urgent action” in favor of students and high school students. “Our idea is that there is an emergency for 2027. Classes are disrupted or canceled, students are vulnerable, particularly licenses and first years, administrative staff are exhausted,” Nathalie Drach-Temam, the president of Sorbonne University who participated in this march, told AFP.
Around fifteen establishments were represented within the collective which paraded, including the Sorbonne, Assas, the Sorbonne Nouvelle, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris-Saclay and Inalco (oriental languages and civilizations). They marched peacefully and did not ask to be received by members of the government or parliamentarians. Their objective: “that the State mobilizes a billion euros” for youth and “triggers an emergency plan in favor of the university now and for the future”.
Faced with the high school and student movement, the government has promised the gradual replacement of Parcoursup by 2028 and 15,000 additional places in higher education. These “additional places for 2027 are being installed now”, underlines Nathalie Drach-Temam, who wants concrete answers as well as a General Assembly of Youth, five months before the presidential election.
One of the three teenagers suspected of having participated in the attack on a police officer on October 1 in Paris on the sidelines of the high school movement was placed under judicial supervision but not the other two, AFP learned Friday from a judicial source. This decision angered the Alliance police union.
Following the broadcast on social networks of the video of the attack, in which the police officer is thrown to the ground with a kick, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "violence in meetings against a person holding public authority". A 15-year-old teenager and two 16-year-olds were arrested and must appear before the children's court in Paris on February 23. The children's judge then refused their placement under judicial supervision, leading the Paris prosecutor's office to appeal these orders.
On Wednesday, as revealed by Actu17, the Paris Court of Appeal decided on the contrary to place one of the minors - who did not appear at the hearing - under judicial supervision, with a ban on leaving his home between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., obligation to attend school, ban on coming into contact with the co-defendants and the victim, and obligation for psychological follow-up. The judicial review must still be notified to him. The court also confirmed the provisional judicial educational measure. For the two other minors, until now unknown to the courts, like the 15-year-old, the court confirmed the refusal of judicial review.
