The Interior Ministry said 71,500 people marched across France on Thursday over school conditions, with more than 500 detained. Protesters rejected Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's pledge of a plan by month's end.
France's Interior Ministry said 71,500 people took to the streets on Thursday in another day of high-school protests over staff shortages, crowded classrooms and run-down buildings, Al Jazeera reported, citing the ministry along with AP and Reuters. Police detained more than 500 people. Al Jazeera said footage showed riot police charging protesters with batons in a Paris square.
The marches resumed a day after Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu told officials to produce an action plan. Demonstrators rejected his promise to present a plan to fix the education system by the end of the month, the Guardian reported, and asked him to engage sooner. The Guardian said nearly 400 schools faced disruptions on Thursday morning.
Al Jazeera said authorities reported 375 schools fully or partly closed and two dozen burned or destroyed. It said at least 6,600 arrests, mostly of minors, have been made over the protest wave so far. A teenager lost a hand and another had a jaw shattered by an exploding stun grenade earlier in the protests. Use of those grenades has since been banned at marches.
Police and teachers have also been injured, authorities said, accusing students of violence. The Guardian reported that a recent poll found about three-quarters of the public agreed with the students' demands and 55 percent backed the demonstrations, while opinion was split on whether they should continue.
The Thursday count is an Interior Ministry figure for one day. It is smaller than the 250,000 the ministry estimated for Tuesday's marches, which included union activists. The government has not published the action plan.
People Sentiments Negative
- Demonstrators rejected Sebastien Lecornu's promise of an education plan by the end of the month and asked him to engage sooner.