French teenagers have started setting their schools on fire as the far-Left is blamed for the violent unrest engulfing the nation.
Almost 356 schools were disrupted yesterday as a wave of aggressive youth protests grip the nation over funding and studying conditions.
On the same day, 625 protesters were arrested, while some 83 members of the security forces were wounded in the fallout.
The movement was launched in an unsuspecting suburb of Paris on September 21 at a lycée in Créteil, on the outskirts of the capital.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray confirmed 119 students and staff had been injured ever since the chaos and unrest began to boil over.
Yesterday, the President called for peace. “I can hear and understand the anxieties and anger that our youth can feel,” Mr Macron said.
“However, none of these fears legitimise violence.”
In the same breath, he took aim at “many political leaders” of going to schools “to whip up the pupils… I think that is serious”.
Youths are rioting over pay and conditions – as well as excessive homework and too many stairs at school
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Education Minister Édouard Geffray confirmed 119 students and staff had been injured
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An intelligence report issued a stark warning that far-Left groups were fanning the flames ahead of the presidential election.
It reads: “The origins of this movement lie in an instrumentalisation by student union structures and political movements close to the far-Left.”
It further warned that radical political and union groups demonstrated a “clear desire for disorder” and were accosting a “strategy of conflagration to impose their ideas”.
Police have been facing off against firework-brandishing French teens as emergency services face the same wrath.
Riot police were deployed to fend off the protesters
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Outside a school in Bordeaux, a fireman was seen engulfed by an inferno after a can of aerosol exploded.
Meanwhile, north of Paris, a headteacher was hit in the leg with a firework mortar which was used to launch fireworks into the sky.
Some of the protesters have had to face repercussions of their own making, with one youth losing use of part of his hand due to mishandling a firework.
The French fury is far from dissipating, as interior minister Laurent Nunez warned that the movement would widen, predicting a “significant” surge in violence.
The French fury is far from dissipating
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Furious protesters insist their anti-social behaviour is driven by failures of the French school system.
Some complain about disputes over pay and working conditions.
Meanwhile, others’ disgruntlement appears to stem from excessive amounts of homework and long queues at lunch.
However, at Auguste-Blanqui lycée in Saint-Oue, a 16-year-old student admitted the furore “went too far” when a gaggle of youths “ran riot”.
The French Government has blamed Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed for “irresponsible escalation”.
Students have been setting electric scooters alight
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They have been branded “arsonist firefighters”, with Valerie Pecresse, the president of the Paris region, saying: “It’s a ploy. [France Unbowed] is trying to reignite the Yellow Vest movement… it’s trying to organise another general strike.”
Meanwhile, Mr Macron’s ally, Gabriel Attal, said that France Unbowed was using youths as “political cannon fodder”.
“They don’t give a damn about the substance and solving the problems. All they want is to create chaos,” he declared.
The far-Left leader insisted his party called for “non-violent methods of struggle”.
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