Students across France clash with police over pension reforms

Students across France staged sit-ins and clashed with police Monday as protests against the government’s pension reforms continue. In Paris, students marched down the Champs Elysées and blocked traffic in the centre of town. Elsewhere, police used teargas to disperse protesters.

Reuters/Robert Pratta

The protest actions called by various student unions, brought groups of between 200 and 1,500 students to the streets, most peacefully marching or stopping traffic, though there were reports of cars and property being destroyed.

The Interior Ministry said 196 rioters were detained by mid-day, and four police officers were injured in clashes with protesters.

The Education Ministry said 261 high schools were disrupted, while the UNL student union said 850 were involved, and 550 were shut down.

In Paris, Monday afternoon RFI observed some 200 students blocking Rue de Rivoli, a main thoroughfare of the capital. They sat on the street near city hall in the street, stopping traffic, holding signs calling themselves the Mouvement de Lycée, or High school movement.

Some 300 to 400 students from the Paris suburbs convened at Etoile, according to the AFP news agency. They tried to go down the Champs Elysées to block traffic, but were stopped by police on the sidewalk, without incident.

Monday morning, police clashed with students in Nanterre, a Paris suburb. Cars were burned and bus stops and phone booths in the area were destroyed by stones by students at the police, who used teargas to get the situation under control by the afternoon.

In Lagny-sur-Marne, another suburb, a police officer was injured by stones thrown by protesters in front of a high school, who also launched Molotov cocktails, according to a police source.

In eastern France, police reportedly broke up a protest of 400 high school students in Mulhouse, arresting two, aged 15 and 16 years old. Four were detained after property was damaged in Thionville and Forbach, where about 500 high school students were protesting.

In Nancy and Metz, 1,000 and 1,500 students took to the streets without incident.
In Lyon, about 1,000 high school students took to the streets. Two students, both 18-years-old, were sentenced to three months in prison after one damaged an advertising sign when she threw a rock at it, and the other threw a bag of dead leaves on a police officer.