Hundreds of schools to remain closed in France as violent student protests continue

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The student protest movement that has spread ​across France is now "out of control", the Paris police chief has said as up to 500 schools are set to remain closed on Monday.

Riot police clashed with high school students across France on Friday and unions called for teachers to strike as President Emmanuel Macron's government battled to contain increasingly violent protests ⁠over classroom conditions and funding.

Up to 500 schools in the country will be totally or partly closed on Monday, the education minister said. Edouard Geffray added that 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” since the start of the movement.

The Paris police chief urged demonstrators to return to peaceful action and warning that authorities would respond firmly ⁠to violence and vandalism.

Since ​Monday, ⁠around 5,000 people, mostly teenagers, have been arrested nationwide and dozens injured.

Agathe Foucault, a spokesperson for the ⁠national police, told RTL radio on Saturday that more than ​600 ⁠police officers had also been ‌injured.

Teachers and members of the public have been attacked, while damage to property is estimated in the tens ‌of millions of euros.

Paris police chief Patrice ‌Faure, in an open letter published on X ahead of planned renewed protests from next Tuesday, said those who had launched the movement no ⁠longer controlled it and called on students to abandon school blockades and unrest in favour of peaceful forms of protest.

Protests first erupted in the Paris region in mid-September. Teachers and students mobilized against a lack of staff at a lycée, or high school, in Creteil, in the southeastern outskirts of the French capital. From there, class strikes, blockades and demonstrations spread to other Paris suburbs and then nationwide, with protests even in high schools of smaller towns.

Hundreds of schools have had to close because of damage or attacks that targeted staff, according to the education minister. More than 170 pupils and 65 staff members have suffered injuries, he says.

From the outset, pupils focused on perceived inequalities in the school system, saying that teaching, facilities and opportunities for advancement aren't as good for students in disadvantaged neighborhoods — despite the promise of France's national motto: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."

Placards held up by the first protesters in Creteil read "Too many inequalities, we're disgusted," "Education is a right, not a privilege," and "Sorry to bother, it's for our future," according to photos posted by Clémence Guetté, the district's lawmaker at the National Assembly, France's parliament.

Pupils elsewhere complained that during summer heat waves, they roast in classrooms without air-conditioning, and they freeze in winter. French media broadcast videos of scampering rats, collapsed ceilings, leaks, broken furniture and other woes filmed in dilapidated schools.

"The public needs to know that conditions for studying are no longer what they were for us," said Sophie Bordy, a 50-year-old literature teacher in Paris. "It has deteriorated significantly."

Still, spending on education is one of the costliest items in the state budget that Macron's government is proposing for 2027. It earmarked 65.5 billion euros ($74 billion) for schools, more than the 63.4 billion euros for defense.

Pupils also complain of long hours. In high schools, classes often start at 8 a.m. and can last to the early evening. French high schoolers' compulsory school hours are among the highest in Europe, according to European Union figures.

"I see the teachers more than my family," read one young girl's placard photographed by Le Parisien newspaper.

Guetté, the lawmaker who posted photos of herself meeting with the first protesters in Creteil, bullhorn in hand, is a rising star of the far-left France Unbowed party. Other France Unbowed lawmakers and elected officials also quickly identified with the protests, meeting with pupils and backing their demands.

France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon urged party members and supporters to protect pupils from the police, by putting themselves in between the two sides.

Mélenchon has denounced what he called the "savagery" of police officers who have liberally used tear gas and their batons to break up crowds. Police riot-control projectiles are suspected in some facial injuries that young protesters suffered.

Critics of Mélenchon accuse France Unbowed of stoking and manipulating the pupils for political gain. Mélenchon, a fiery anti-capitalist, says his party supports the movement but isn't organizing it and wants it to be non-violent.

Mélenchon, 75, is making his fourth run for the French presidency and is wooing young voters. They tended to vote less than other age groups in the last presidential election in 2022 but could potentially help Mélenchon qualify for the decisive second-round runoff in May — a success that has always escaped him — if he can mobilize them to turn out.

"What we want is for this country's young people to emerge from this episode with their heads held high, having won something and learned something, and to remember it when they cast their ballots," Mélenchon said Thursday.