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PARIS: France readied on Tuesday for fresh nationwide demonstrations supporting students who have been protesting poor classroom conditions for weeks, with authorities and participants wary of further violence.<\/p>\n
The mobilization, backed by unions and the far-left opposition France Unbowed party, was to include a march through Paris starting at 1200 GMT, along with marches in other cities.<\/p>\n
It follows demonstrations on Thursday that saw more than 70,000 people take to the streets across France, with about 500 people arrested.<\/p>\n
French authorities had been hoping that the student protest movement that started in late September was starting to ease, ahead of half-term holidays. The protests have seen students pile up dumpsters and other obstacles to block access to high schools, with clashes occasionally breaking out with police.<\/p>\n
On Monday, only 130 of France\u2019s 3,700 lycees were closed, according to the education ministry, though it stated that, while \u201cthe number of school closures is falling… the violence is intensifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an incident seemingly unrelated to the protests, police arrested a 14-year-old on Monday near Marseille after a middle school headmaster and a teacher were shot with a hunting rifle, wounding both.<\/p>\n
The education ministry said eight members of teaching staff were injured on Monday, mostly in the Paris region and cities of Bordeaux and Lyon, in relation to the protests. Its tally did not include the shooting, which police were treating as a separate case.<\/p>\n
\u2018Aren\u2019t being heard\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n While most of the protests have been peaceful, students say they are determined to press the government to address the problems of too many absent teachers, dilapidated buildings, overcrowded class schedules and other grievances.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents aren\u2019t being heard enough… not their proposals to authorities and elected officials,\u201d a 19-year-old graphic design student in Paris, Leo, said.<\/p>\n He added that the protesters \u2014 many of whom were minors \u2014 were \u201cdisturbed by the level of repression never before seen for a student movement.\u201d<\/p>\n One young protester lost a hand from a police stun grenade earlier in the protests, another lost many of his teeth from a tear-gas canister fired in his face at close range, and another lost an eye.<\/p>\n Rights groups and students have accused the police of a disproportionate use of force.<\/p>\n Several police officers and teachers have also been hurt, and on Monday authorities said fireworks fired through a tube injured two school workers in Reims, one school worker in a Paris suburb and a police officer outside a school in Marseille.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s demonstrations supporting the students were to be followed on Saturday by wider public rallies against the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n Naila, a 17-year-old student in the city of Rennes who said she would participate in Tuesday\u2019s demonstration, hoped it would \u201cconverge\u201d with the wider one on Saturday.<\/p>\n President Emmanuel Macron, speaking to reporters on Monday, said the pupils\u2019 grievances would take time to address and urged restraint from protesters.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are issues that deserve time, consultations, discussion and respect,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n Worries about lost lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n More than 6,800 people \u2014 largely minors \u2014 have been taken into police custody over the course of the protests, according to the justice ministry.<\/p>\n Police have opened internal investigations into 24 allegations of brutality against demonstrators.<\/p>\n After last week\u2019s nationwide demonstrations, the government promised some 3,000 substitute teachers would be deployed in the coming days to replace absent staff at the 114 worst-affected high schools.<\/p>\n A government spokeswoman on Monday said they had started to be assigned.<\/p>\n But the national students\u2019 union has dismissed the government\u2019s move as \u201ccrumbs\u201d and was demanding a 10 billion-euro ($11 billion) boost for lycees.<\/p>\n Some parents and students, however, voiced concerns about all the classes being missed because of the protests. A few worried that the children were being used as pawns by opposition political parties.<\/p>\n Some parents pleaded for the teens to lift their blockades at Paris schools.<\/p>\n \u201cThe blockades are by their very nature undemocratic,\u201d complained one mother, who went by the pseudonym Gladys.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s shameful to block students who really want to study, by a movement they aren\u2019t part of,\u201d said Clara Juillet, a university student in the city of Tours who has been unable to attend lessons for a week because of the protests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n