The charred door of the Roger Verlomme Institute is burning proof of what is brewing in France. A group of masked and hooded protesters made a spectacular pyre at the entrance with garbage, old furniture and rental bicycles. The smoke rose at first to the height of the Eiffel Tower and was visible throughout the south of Paris. The police dispersed the gathered crowd with tear gas early in the morning and firefighters put out the fire in time.
Two other Parisian institutes (the Léonard de Vinci and the Gaston-Bachelard) suffered fire outbreaks on Friday, like the one that broke out the day before at the Nelson Mandela high school in Nantes. The fires and barricades spread throughout France, while the unions call for "greater mobilization in the absence of concrete measures", the student "blockades" extend to more than 700 institutes and at least twenty universities and "urban violence" has become the hot potato of the presidential elections.
Forty high school directors have been injured in the violent protests in front of the high schools and the police have arrested more than 5,000 protesters throughout the week, most of them minors. Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin assessed the damage "between 25 and 30 million euros" and announced his intention to pass the bill directly to parents: "What are 15 or 16 year olds doing destroying bus stops or attacking school directors?"
"The spirits are burning," certifies a 16-year-old student who identifies himself as Farah, at the picket set up in front of the Paris 8 University in the suburb of Saint-Denis, a bastion of France Insoumise and one of the epicenters of the revolt. "We have been denouncing for a long time the lack of teachers, the saturation of classes, the rats in the canteens and the degradation of schools, which became unbreathable during the heat waves."
Farah studies at the nearby Paul-Eluard institute, closed until further notice like more than 500 secondary schools, and witnessed the "media lynching" of the "rebellious" mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, accused by the Paris prosecutor's office of inciting violence... "Bally came to express his solidarity with us. Someone set fire to an old sofa at the entrance to the high school and television linked him to street violence."
"Shame"
"Bally said that violence, at some point, can be legitimate," adds Théo, a film student at Paris 8 University and a supporter of La Francia Insumisa. "And that is what we are doing here, "passive" violence, blocking the entrance to the university because it is time for us to stand up and say it out loud: national education is a shame, and we are not going to allow more cuts while investing in weapons."
"We skip classes to teach a lesson!" can be read on one of the banners erected during the blockade in Saint-Denis, which passed throughout Friday with relative calm, in contrast to the scenes of tension experienced in the east of Paris. At the Voltaire high school, next to the Père Lachaise cemetery, riot police closely monitored the movements of dozens of students gathered at the door, shouting encouragement to the teachers who joined the protest ("Allez, allez, les profs!").
"The kids are right and they deserve to be heard," declared a teacher who identified herself as Camille. "In fact, all this started as a teachers' strike, and the students have done nothing more than pick up our baton and raise their voices before the politicians. The violence? I know that they are not the ones who provoke it."
"The demands of the students are legitimate and their methods of mobilization are legitimate," declared Sophia Chikirou, former candidate for mayor of Paris for France Insoumise, at the door of the Voltaire Institute. "We remain vigilant and reject all forms of repression against them."
All cameras were directed on Friday towards the 15th arrondissement of Paris, where a handful of protesters forced the closure of the Roger Verlomme institute due to a fire set at the door that forced the police and firefighters to intervene. "They were people who had nothing to do with the high school," warns Emma, a student and resident of Fondary Street, startled by the smoke and the noise of the mortars early in the morning. "Among the students there were people who supported them and people who do not agree with these methods. It is possible that all this will end up getting out of control."
"Mobilization must continue in secondary schools: we are proud to belong to a generation that is capable of mobilizing for its rights," was the message delivered on Friday by the unions, after the meeting held with the Minister of Education Édouard Geffray. "We have had a number of responses about school schedules, mental health and the state of buildings, but we have not achieved concrete commitments," said a union spokesperson.
"Extreme violence"
Geffray confirmed that 725 secondary schools were affected by the blockades and protests, including "acts of extreme violence" and attacks against teaching staff. Even so, the Minister of Education specified that the incidents had been 30% lower than the previous day and expressed his confidence in an "acceleration of measures", such as substitution of teachers and the review of strict school schedules, to satisfy the demands of the students.
In the town of Selestat, in Alsace, a student was seriously injured, apparently for carrying an incendiary object. A police officer had to be hospitalized after clashes with students in Belfort, near the Swiss border. In Marseille, a 15-year-old student was arrested for threatening to kill a Spanish teacher. Student protests spread to the overseas territories of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
