Protesting pupils blockade French high schools again, testing a weekslong movement

PARIS (AP) — Protesting pupils blockaded their high schools again Tuesday, a day of planned demonstrations that will test the resilience and energy of a weeks-old nationwide movement demanding more resources for the school system.

At the Hélène Boucher lycée, or high school, in Paris' 20th district, protesters laid trash cans and bicycles on their sides to create a makeshift barricade in front of the school.

Like hundreds of others around the country,

the school was closed. Authorities began shutting schools last week to take some steam out of the demonstrations after widespread damage to schools and mounting injuries among staff, students and police.

French media also reported protests in other cities and towns on Tuesday morning, as labor unions called for workers to demonstrate later Tuesday in support of the high school movement that is rattling the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

The government's response has been muscular: Police made more than 5,000 arrests last week, 85% of them minors. But the police's widespread use of arrests, tear gas and riot-control weapons against teenage demonstrators is fueling defiance and angering some parents and teachers.

At Hélène Boucher, parents and other adults on Tuesday positioned themselves between protesters and police forces that kept watch.

School blockades and protests started in the Paris region in mid-September and spread to other cities and towns. Demonstrators are expressing an array of grievances, often centered around complaints that resources and opportunities for advancement are sorely lacking for students in disadvantaged schools despite the promise of France’s national motto: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”

Pupils have focused attention on run-down classrooms that lack basics such as desks and chairs, roast without air-conditioning in summer, and are even rat-infested. Other widely shared complaints are that schools lack sufficient staff and that pupils' workloads are exhausting. French high schoolers’ compulsory school hours are among the highest in Europe.