OVER 400 DETAINED AS FRENCH SCHOOL PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT

More than 400 people, most of them children, were detained across France on Tuesday after students blockaded schools in protests over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and long timetables. Interior minister Laurent Nunez told BFM TV that 440 people had been detained nationwide, with roughly two-thirds leading to police custody, and said 48 police officers were injured during the clashes. He said there were seven instances of hydrochloric acid being thrown at officers. Police used tear gas and batons after some protesters set fire to bins, threw fireworks, and hurled bottles and paving stones. The education ministry said 400 schools were affected by protests or disruptions, out of about 3,700 across the country.

The protests began in Paris last week and spread nationwide, with clashes reported in Lille, Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes and Marseille as well as the capital. In Lille, pupils set fire to dustbins and threw projectiles at police, who responded with tear gas after bus shelters and advertising hoardings were vandalised. At the Lamartine school in Paris, students held placards protesting timetables running from 8am to 6pm, saying they had "more hours of lessons than sleep". In the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, mayor Bally Bagayoko joined hundreds of students protesting at the Lycee Paul-Eluard, calling the demonstrations "completely legitimate" and saying low-income areas received fewer resources than wealthier ones. Agence France-Presse reported that police carrying riot shields struck students with batons when a crowd formed there.

Nunez said "there is nothing that justifies showing up at institutions to demonstrate, masked, with your face disguised, carrying projectiles, and waiting for the intervention of law enforcement just to go after them." Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu had earlier said that escalating the demonstrations would be "irresponsible". Students including Mael Breton, from the Helene-Boucher school in Paris, said they wanted fewer police present, citing concerns about what they described as heavy policing of student and social movements alongside a lack of funding for schools.