Students, teachers and parents marched in cites across France on Tuesday and protesters blockaded hundreds of schools, in the biggest day of action in a wave of demonstrations demanding the government tackle understaffed and dilapidated classrooms, Reuters reports.
In Marseille, Nantes and Lyon, the street protests began peacefully mid-morning, with the largest demonstration expected in Paris in the afternoon.
Youngsters held aloft smoke flares and placards reading "Under our school books, anger" and "Where are the politicians? Do they even know we exist?"
Tuesday's demonstrations come after a fortnight of protests which began in Paris's deprived suburbs before spreading across the country. The government responded with riot police, saying the movement had now morphed into urban violence.
A teenager's hand was blown off as high-school protesters clashed with riot police in northern France on Monday. François-Xavier Lauch, prefect of Pas-de-Calais, declined to comment on the exact circumstances, saying some 200 to 250 protesters had been hurling objects at police.
The regional newspaper La Voix du Nord said the 15-year-old lost his hand and part of his lower arm after picking up a police dispersal grenade.
The High School Students Union said 1,800 high schools were blockaded or would close for the day. Some local education authorities have tried to move classes online. The education ministry did not immediately make numbers available.
“When the answer is violence, it means democracy is no longer working," said Hugo Vetzel, a high school leaver in Strasbourg now taking classes for the entrance exams to France's top-tier universities. "There is such a gap between the elites and us.”
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