PARIS — More than 5,000 people have been arrested since Monday as student protests over learning conditions intensified across France, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Friday.
Speaking to TF1, Nunez said “urban violence” had been recorded near 158 educational establishments during the protests, describing the scale of the mobilization as “surprising.”
He said 735 schools had been affected and cited 1,747 arrests in the latest unrest, as hundreds of schools remained closed or faced disruptions on Friday.
Nunez said projectiles had been thrown during the demonstrations and that police officers, teachers, journalists and passersby had been attacked.
Authorities reported around 900 protests outside schools on Thursday, when nearly 2,000 arrests were made and more than 300 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
Several organizations representing the student movement, along with left-wing and far-left political groups, have called for another nationwide mobilization on Oct. 6 against what they described as police “repression.”
Concerns over police tactics have also intensified following reports of serious injuries during the demonstrations.
A 16-year-old student injured during protests in the central city of Tours has lost the use of one eye, France Info reported.
The teenager was reportedly struck by an LBD-40, a less-lethal projectile launcher used by French police. La Nouvelle République reported that the student remained hospitalized and was interviewed Friday by the General Inspectorate of the National Police.
Separately, video footage shared online Friday appeared to show a police officer holding a protester’s head underwater during an arrest in Belfort, prompting accusations of excessive force.
Belfort Public Prosecutor Paul-Edouard Lallois disputed that interpretation of the footage. He said the officer was attempting to arrest a suspect accused of trying to start a fire when both men lost their balance and fell into the river as the suspect resisted being handcuffed.
Lallois said the officer subsequently pulled the young man from the water before handcuffing him.
La France Insoumise lawmaker Antoine Leaument responded to the footage by calling on the interior minister to intervene, arguing that the police action did not comply with rules governing the maintenance of public order.
Source: Saudi Gazette