SAINT-DENIS: Dozens of people have been injured and hundreds arrested, most of them children, officials said, in a wave of student demonstrations against teacher shortages and dilapidated buildings which on Wednesday impacted high schools nationwide. The demonstrations and blockades, which began last week and coincided on Tuesday with a broader public-sector strike, have become a political flashpoint at a sensitive moment for France. On Thursday, the government will unveil the country's 2027 budget which is expected to involve spending cuts aimed at easing pressure on government finances.
In Saint-Denis, a large suburb north of Paris, students stood outside the gates of their school near a fire that had been set as police looked on, while in Lyon and Lille television images showed people throwing projectiles at lines of police officers. "There are cockroaches and rats everywhere in the school," Fadila, a 17-year-old student, told Reuters. She said temperatures in classrooms could swing from sweltering to below freezing, depending on the weather. "We can't work in those conditions," she said.
According to the OECD global policy forum, French spending on primary and secondary education was in the middle of the range among member countries and increased between 2015 and 2022, but its share of the budget has slightly decreased. France's Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that there had been 76 injuries, both among students and personnel, since the beginning of the demonstrations. He did not specify who the personnel were or the severity of the injuries.
Politicians from the hard-left France Unbowed party have joined the demonstrations. Other officials and politicians have denounced the party for rhetoric they said was stoking students' anger. Bally Bagayoko, a France Unbowed mayor who was quoted as saying violence is sometimes legitimate, has said his words have been taken out of context. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster BFM that some 440 people were detained over the high school protests on Tuesday alone, most of them minors. Nunez said there were seven incidents in which people threw hydrochloric acid at law enforcement officers.
The protesting students say classrooms are overcrowded and that there are not enough teachers. The government has criticised violence that has broken out at some of the demonstrations but said that difficulties in high schools should be acknowledged and addressed. Gamze, a 17-year-old student in Saint-Denis, said students in the historically working-class suburb were treated unfairly compared with students elsewhere. "It's always us ... who are suffering when in Paris or in the countryside, they're not in such a situation," she said. — Reuters
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