In France, tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets of Paris on October 6 for protests at schools demanding improved learning conditions. This comes as influential French trade unions join high school students amid a wave of protests that have already seen clashes with police. UNN reports this with reference to AFP.
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The authorities expect between 20,000 and 40,000 demonstrators in Paris.
New protests are expected on Tuesday after classes were disrupted at 589 of the country’s 3,700 lycées and 32 universities, according to the education ministry and the student union.
The protests have been ongoing since late September. Students then began blocking the entrances to hundreds of secondary schools for 15- to 17-year-olds, complaining about a lack of teachers, overloaded schedules, run-down classrooms, and buildings unable to cope with rising temperatures.
Many of the protests were peaceful. But some students set fire to garbage bins and bus stops or clashed with police, who responded with batons, tear gas, and riot-control projectiles, the publication writes.
Since the movement began, 215 students and 715 police officers have been injured, according to the authorities, while a 15-year-old teenager lost an arm on Monday, October 5, when he picked up a grenade fired by officers.
Several trade unions accused police of using disproportionate force against protesters. Police have launched 10 internal investigations into allegations of brutality since the protests began, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said late Monday.
The government has tried to address these complaints while accusing left-wing activists of hijacking the protest movement.
According to the education minister, 24 schools have been burned or looted since the movement began. More than 5,000 people, 87 percent of them minors, have been detained. Lecornu’s office reported that 85 teachers were also injured.
The unrest erupted just months before the 2027 elections, in which the successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron will be elected after his maximum two terms in office.