Violent scenes are emerging from France Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand education reform, forcing the reported closure of more than half of the country’s high schools.
France’s interior ministry said 6,100 people have been taken into custody since the protests began in September, while at least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have been injured in clashes, according to Reuters.
Video taken in cities including Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg showed demonstrators facing off with police, lighting fires and dodging tear gas. In other areas, such as Marseille and Nantes, protesters held up signs with messages like, “The state has killed national education,” Reuters reported.
The Interior Ministry estimated that 256,000 people took part in the demonstrations nationwide, including 56,000 in Paris.
“What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
TEEN’S HAND BLOWN OFF BY POLICE GRENADE DURING FRENCH STUDENT PROTESTS: REPORT
The protests are quickly blowing up as a hot topic in the election campaign to replace President Emmanuel Macron next May. Far-left presidential hopeful Jean-Luc Mélenchon has decried the government response to the protests as repressive. Critics have accused his party, La France Insoumise, (LFI), of seeking to use the unrest to score points in the presidential campaign and of inciting violence.
Video previously posted to social media showed the Seine-Saint Denis mayor, Bally Bagayoko of the LFI, joining in with students, smiling and high-fiving pupils after a trash can was set on fire in the street. And the president of the Île‑de‑France region told Radio Monte Carlo, “There is a call to action being issued by LFI today: ‘Trash your high school.’ It is being spread via TikTok challenges.”
LFI has denied the accusations, according to Reuters.
“This is a combination of the Islamists, together with the communists, the socialists, the far-left that are joining forces, and this is an outright uprising and insurrection basically is what it is that we are witnessing in France,” Nile Gardiner, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus” on Tuesday. “The stakes are incredibly high for the French people and this is a warning for the United States, as well.”
Authorities began shutting schools last week to try to defuse tensions after widespread damage to schools and mounting injuries among staff, students and police. Classes were totally or partially suspended Tuesday at 891 schools, according to the Education Ministry. The High School Students Union also told Reuters that over half of France’s high schools were closed or blockaded Tuesday.
Students have drawn attention to rundown classrooms that lack basics such as desks and chairs, become sweltering in summer without air conditioning and, in some cases, are infested with rats.
Other common complaints include staff shortages and exhausting workloads. French high school students’ compulsory classroom hours are among the highest in Europe.
“We want more money for the national educational system so that high schools are renovated,” Roberta, a recent high school graduate in Paris, told Reuters.
FRANCE ROCKED BY STUDENT RIOTS AS HUNDREDS ARRESTED, VIOLENCE SPREADS NATIONWIDE
In one of the recent demonstrations in the town of Lens on Monday, a 15-year-old had picked up a police dispersal grenade that detonated, losing his hand and part of his lower arm, officials said.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has asked ministers in France to address student demands, including repairs to aging buildings, a call for longer lunch breaks and a review of the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school day, according to Reuters.
Felix Barney, a university student, told The Associated Press that the police response was disproportionate.
“It doesn’t have any sense to hit minors,” he said.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Tuesday defended policing methods used against high schoolers, saying the police response has been proportionate in “almost all cases.”
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano, Tyler Speicher, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
