“HELD HOSTAGE”
Training Minister Edouard Geffray mentioned “the highschool scholar motion is being held hostage by ultra-violent fringe teams”, including that almost 400 excessive colleges out of the three,700 within the nation had been anticipated to be closed on Friday.
Many excessive colleges have additionally deliberate to conduct lessons remotely, notably within the southern metropolis of Marseille.
A minimum of 65 workers members have been injured, together with 40 highschool principals, because the begin of the motion, Geffray advised BFMTV. Some 170 college students have been wounded whereas over 100 excessive colleges have suffered “extreme harm”.
“Dad and mom should clearly step up and inform their kids to not go” to the protests, he added. “What issues now’s guaranteeing our kids are now not out on the streets, as a result of they’re in peril.”
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin mentioned he has requested prosecutors to carry mother and father accountable for harm brought on by their kids in the course of the protests and “pay for repairs”.
For the reason that begin of the motion, round 2,000 folks have been taken into police custody, “90 p.c of whom had been minors”, Darmanin advised RTL.
“WE’VE WON”
Within the western metropolis of Rennes, the strain was already palpable outdoors the Jean-Mace highschool with college students wearing black and sporting balaclavas standing not removed from a heavy police presence.
“So far as we’re involved, we have gained – our faculty is closed this morning,” mentioned Lola, 16, who declined to offer her final identify.
She condemned what she mentioned was police violence. “It makes us even angrier – the police haven’t any proper to hit us or use tear fuel on us.”
Police used tear fuel on the Kerichen highschool in Brest, in western France, an AFP photographer mentioned.
The protests have additionally made a powerful political echo simply over half a 12 months earlier than presidential elections, with the federal government accusing the laborious left France Unbowed (LFI) – whose firebrand chief Jean-Luc Melenchon is once more standing for the presidency – of being behind the motion.
However senior LFI official Manuel Bompard accused the federal government of “descending into conspiracy theories”.
In a bid to ease tensions, Geffray mentioned he was on Friday assembly with training unions and highschool scholar associations to seek out widespread floor for dialogue.
