Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across France, as a wave of protests by high-school pupils spread to their parents, university students and unions.
Crowds of teenagers marched from the Place de la République in Paris, calling for more resources for schools, and what they called less repression from police.
Police clashed with demonstrators in Lyon, used tear gas in Paris and Marseille and water cannon in Rennes, but there was little of the serious trouble that marred previous protests.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu condemned the earlier violence and said since the protests had begun 215 students and 85 staff had been hurt as well as 715 police officers.
The government said there had been disruption in 891 high schools on Tuesday – almost a quarter of all lycées – and said more than 250,000 demonstrators had taken to the streets during the day.
Students’ unions put the number at 450,000, and said the number of high schools blockaded was 1,800 on what the protesters dubbed “Act Three” of their movement.
In Marseille, thousands of demonstrators moved around this city, stopping momentarily to chant before moving on as police changed direction.
A group of masked protesters grabbed bollards and bins and tried to barricade themselves off from police. Riot officers fired tear gas, and the protesters dispersed.
“Most of us aren’t violent,” said Alissa, a student in Marseille. “We’re going to the streets because they’ve closed our schools… schools are falling apart.”
Her friend, Sacha, said the ceilings in Marseille’s schools were leaking and conditions were generally rather poor, “so we can’t really work a lot of time”. “We will keep doing this until good measures are taken,” he added.
In parliament, the prime minister accused the radical-left France Unbowed (LFI) party of seeking to “sow chaos” ahead of presidential elections in seven months’ time.
President Emmanuel Macron is nearing the end of his second and final term in office and LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is currently runner-up in the opinion polls behind Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally.
Macron was due to chair a meeting with ministers at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday evening to assess the situation.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray said that from the start he had appealed for dialogue rather than school blockades and complained that “ultra-violent elements infiltrated the high-school student movements”.
He is now under pressure to respond to the students’ demands. What has been offered, including a website for students to express their grievances and an afternoon of internal discussion in schools on Friday, has made little impression so far.
There seems little chance of the protests coming to an end just yet. France’s biggest union, the CGT, has said that further protests involving school and university students are being planned for Thursday.
There is widespread concern over allegations of “disproportionate force” by police, and France’s IGPN police inspectorate has been investigating a number of cases.
One police officer who fired a tear-gas grenade at a high school student at Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, north-west of Paris, last week has now been charged by prosecutors with “violence… resulting in mutilation or permanent disability”.
Eden, 14, was part of a group blockading the Château d’Épluches lycée for 15-18-year-olds when he was hit in the face. His lawyer said he suffered a fractured jaw, and that his upper teeth were broken and four of his lower teeth were gone.
On Monday, a 15-year-old’s hand was torn off after a so-called anti-encirclement grenade was fired in unclear circumstances near a school in the northern city of Lens.
Authorities say he picked up the “sting ball” grenade which then exploded, but students allege he was hit directly after an officer fired.
The grenade is considered a non-lethal weapon and the local prefect has said the incident took place when police were confronted by a group of 200-250 students throwing stones and fireworks.
What began with local anger at overcrowded classrooms, a lack of teaching staff and dilapidated school buildings in the northern Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis in mid-September has since spread across the country, and extended to some universities too.
Late on Tuesday, the French interior ministry said a total of 6,547 had been stopped or arrested by police since 28 September.
Tuesday’s protests drew people of all ages. One couple in their 70s, Alain and Michèle, joined the march in central Paris, to show their support for young students, explaining that as former teachers they understood the problems that France’s education system was facing.
“We are the grandparents of three students who are all mobilised. They have protested peacefully in front of their respective high schools in Paris in recent days, but they were still tear-gassed,” Alain told the BBC, his voice trembling.
