French high school students set fires, clash with police in anger over school conditions

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High school students across France set fires and clashed with police on Wednesday and Thursday, escalating nearly a week of disruption.

Some 625 people – mostly young – were detained by police on Wednesday, France’s interior minister Laurent Nunez said, adding that 83 police officers had been injured. Government figures put the number of students and teaching staff injured during the days-long protests at 159, including one student who lost part of the use of his hand after setting off a firework.

Videos also surfaced allegedly showing two teachers being attacked by students, provoking condemnation from the French president and officials as well as teaching unions.

Protests began at some French schools last week but picked up Tuesday, with violent scenes overshadowing a nationwide day of protests by unions, workers and students against the upcoming government budget. The situation outside high schools worsened into Wednesday.

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On Thursday, clashes with police appeared to intensify in several cities in France, with the Lycée Nelson Mandela set on fire in Nantes and university students joining protests too. France’s prime minister called an inter-ministerial crisis meeting for early afternoon to address the protests.

As President Emmanuel Macron’s government weighs up how to balance historic public debt with already strained state spending, an under-resourced and overstretched education sector is at the root of students’ anger.

Students complain of teachers not being replaced when they leave and schools in a state of serious disrepair.

High schools in poorer suburbs of cities across France have been at the center of the ongoing tensions with police. Toulouse, Nantes, Rennes, Lyon and Lille have all been host to violent confrontations between students and police, as well as arson on or near school property.

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In the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, one of France’s most underprivileged areas and the epicenter of violence around Paris, video showed high schoolers setting fires outside the gates of the Lycée Paul Éluard, one of the focal points of violent protests, where students also tore down a section of fencing. Blockades were built and trash cans were set on fire outside a number of schools – a tactic common to major protests.

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“There are no windows, in the prefab toilets there’s no water, there are cockroaches and rats everywhere in the school. The school canteen is too expensive, there is no toilet paper in the toilets and we need to go and ask school supervisors to get some,” 17-year-old Fadila, a student at the Lycée Paul Éluard, which is currently undergoing renovations, told Reuters. “The buildings are dilapidated, in winter in the prefab classrooms it’s too cold, its -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and in the summer it’s 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).”

Some 400 schools have been affected nationwide by student blockades, backed in some institutions by teaching staff.

Lawmakers from the far-left France Unbowed party turned up to support protests at numerous schools, including the mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, who told journalists that “violence can be legitimate.”

“Every time we can avoid it, it’s better,” he said, adding that young people should be held accountable for violating the law. But he continued: “They have the right to make a mistake.”

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“I understand the anxieties, sometimes the anger that our young people can have,” Macron told journalists during a state visit to Spain on Wednesday.

“However, none of these fears, none of this debate, legitimizes violence. And in no case can those politically responsible (elected officials) – it’s a term that’s perhaps poorly chosen – legitimize violence. We’ve seen lots of politicians in front of schools drumming up students, I think that it’s serious.”

Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, which surrounds and includes Paris, vowed in a post on X on Tuesday night to invoice Bagayoko for the 100,000-euro ($114,000) cost of repairing damage to the Lycée Paul Éluard. She estimated the cost of the protests in the region to total some 1 million euro.

While Tuesday’s protest marches, led by unions, were largely peaceful, the police response to the protests at schools has been unforgiving, with video showing officers deploying pepper spray on adolescents as well as several instances of policeman aggressively tackling young protesters.

Riot police were met with fireworks near the Lycée Paul Éluard on Tuesday, as anger spread at the police’s response. In one video shared on social media, a teenager was shot in the face with a tear-gas grenade at almost point-blank range by a policeman. A lawyer for family of the 14-year-old boy, identified as Eden L., accused the police of an “explosion of violence” and said that the family was submitting an official complaint to the police.

CNN has reached out to the Saint-Denis police prefecture for comment.

“We want fewer police because we feel there is an excessive amount of police repression, whether against high school student movements or social movements in general, most of which is completely unjustified,” student Mael Breton told Reuters on Tuesday. “We see this as a real problem, especially given the severe budget shortages elsewhere,” he said.

On Thursday, France’s Education Minister Édouard Geffray promised on X to implement online learning for students affected by the disruption. “Violence will not deprive our students of their fundamental right to education,” he said.

Jean-Francois Badias/美联社

周三和周四，法国各地高中生纵火并与警方发生冲突，导致持续近一周的骚乱升级。

法国内政部长洛朗·努内兹表示，周三约有625人被警方拘留，其中大部分是年轻人。他还补充说，有83名警察受伤。政府数据显示，在持续数日的抗议活动中，共有159名学生和教职员工受伤，其中包括一名学生，他因燃放烟花而失去了部分手部功能。

据称，还有视频显示两名教师遭到学生袭击，这引发了法国总统、官员以及教师工会的谴责。

上周，法国部分学校爆发了抗议活动，周二局势升级，暴力事件掩盖了当天全国范围内由工会、工人和学生发起的反对即将出台的政府预算的抗议活动。周三，高中外的局势进一步恶化。

Sebastien Salom-Gomis/法新社/盖蒂图片社

周四，法国多个城市的警民冲突似乎升级，南特市的纳尔逊·曼德拉中学被纵火焚烧，大学生也加入了抗议活动。法国总理召集各部委于当天下午召开危机会议，商讨应对抗议活动。

在法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙的政府权衡如何平衡历史性的公共债务和已经捉襟见肘的国家支出之际，资源不足且不堪重负的教育部门是学生愤怒的根源。

学生们抱怨教师离职后没有接替人选，学校也年久失修。

法国各地城市较贫困郊区的高中一直是学生与警方持续紧张关系的焦点。图卢兹、南特、雷恩、里昂和里尔都曾发生学生与警方之间的暴力冲突，以及在学校或附近发生的纵火事件。

Sameer Al-Doumy/法新社/盖蒂图片社

在巴黎郊区圣丹尼，法国最贫困的地区之一，也是巴黎周边暴力事件的中心，视频显示，一些高中生在保罗·艾吕雅中学（Lycée Paul Éluard）大门外纵火，该校是暴力抗议活动的中心地点之一，学生们还拆毁了一段围栏。多所学校外都设置了路障，垃圾桶也被点燃——这是大型抗议活动中常见的策略。

Lafargue Raphael/ABACA/Shutterstock

“学校没有窗户，简易厕所里没有水，到处都是蟑螂和老鼠。食堂太贵了，厕所里没有厕纸，我们还得去找学校管理人员去拿，”17岁的法迪拉告诉路透社。她是保罗·艾吕雅中学的一名学生，该校目前正在翻修。“校舍破败不堪，冬天简易教室里太冷了，零下5摄氏度（23华氏度），夏天又热得像40摄氏度（104华氏度）。”

全国约有 400 所学校受到学生封锁的影响，一些学校的教职工也参与了封锁行动。

来自极左翼政党“不屈法国”的议员们到场支持多所学校的抗议活动，其中包括圣丹尼斯市市长巴利·巴加约科，他告诉记者“暴力可能是合法的”。

“只要能避免，当然越好，”他说，并补充说，年轻人应该为违法行为承担责任。但他接着说：“他们有犯错的权利。”

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“我理解我们年轻人有时会有的焦虑，有时甚至是愤怒，”马克龙周三在对西班牙进行国事访问期间告诉记者。

“然而，所有这些担忧，所有这些争论，都不能为暴力行为辩护。而且，任何情况下，那些负有政治责任的（民选官员）——或许用这个词不太恰当——都不能为暴力行为辩护。我们看到很多政客在学校门口煽动学生，我认为这很严重。”

法兰西岛大区主席瓦莱丽·佩克雷斯（Valérie Pécresse）周二晚在X网站上发文誓言，将向巴加约科（Bagayoko）开具10万欧元（约合11.4万美元）的账单，用于修复保罗·艾吕雅中学（Lycée Paul Éluard）的损坏。她估计，该地区抗议活动造成的损失总计约100万欧元。

虽然周二由工会领导的抗议游行总体上是和平的，但警方对学校抗议活动的反应却毫不留情，视频显示警察对青少年使用胡椒喷雾，还有几起警察粗暴对待年轻抗议者的事件。

周二，防暴警察在保罗·艾吕亚中学附近遭到民众燃放烟花的抗议，民众对警方的应对措施感到愤怒。一段在社交媒体上流传的视频显示，一名警察几乎近距离用催泪弹击中了一名少年的面部。这名14岁男孩名叫伊登·L，其家人聘请的律师指责警方“暴力行为”，并表示家属将向警方正式提出投诉。

CNN已联系圣丹尼斯警察局寻求置评。

学生马埃尔·布雷顿周二告诉路透社：“我们希望减少警力，因为我们觉得警方的镇压过度，无论是针对高中学生运动还是其他社会运动，其中大部分都是完全没有道理的。” 他说：“我们认为这是一个真正的问题，尤其是在其他地方预算严重短缺的情况下。”

周四，法国教育部长爱德华·热弗雷在X频道承诺，将为受疫情影响的学生实施在线学习。他表示：“暴力事件绝不会剥夺学生受教育的基本权利。”