Paris Answers Student Revolt With 70,000 Cops and 779 Arrests

More than 770 people were arrested across France this weekend, the interior ministry said Sunday, after the third consecutive Saturday of mass protest against soaring living costs and crumbling schools. About 70,000 police were deployed around the country, a national police official told AP. Seventy thousand uniforms, to answer a movement that started in school corridors.

Prosecutors told AFP they've opened an attempted murder investigation after petrol bombs were thrown at security forces in Paris. "Explosive devices were thrown at around 15 gendarmes as well as police officers," the prosecutor's office said. AFP photos and video showed a homemade incendiary device exploding at the feet of an officer in eastern Paris, engulfing his lower body in flames. Reported injuries include second-degree burns. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez decried an "extraordinary" level of violence. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called for those responsible to be "punished with the utmost severity." No suspects had been arrested in connection with the incident at that stage.

The state's vocabulary tells you its priorities. "Attempted murder of persons vested with public authority" is the charge. Gendarmes, as the base reporting notes, are military police, part of the French armed forces. That's who was deployed against a student movement.

What the Streets Said

The numbers are contested. The interior ministry put turnout at 320,000, including 70,000 in Paris. A coalition of youth groups and student unions claimed nearly half a million, according to bne IntelliNews. France 24 called the day "Act III." Either way, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for the third weekend running.

The movement began in the lycées on September 17, about six weeks ago, over dilapidated school buildings, teacher shortages and the Parcoursup university admissions system. Not a manifesto. Leaking roofs, missing teachers, a ranking algorithm that decides futures.

The arrest figures show the escalating logic of the policing response: 2,628 on October 17, 1,314 the following weekend, 779 as of Saturday night according to AP. On October 17 a city hall was torched and more than 2,000 stores were looted in hours of violence authorities "seemed unprepared to control." The Chambers of Commerce and Industry counted some 20 businesses affected Saturday and voiced concern about retail activity ahead of the year-end holiday season. The shopfront ledger gets its own institutional spokesperson. The students get a tear gas canister.

Bne IntelliNews reported masked protesters prising up paving stones and throwing them at police, who answered with tear gas and baton charges. Police also fired tear gas in Lyon. Near the Eiffel Tower, police charged repeatedly, sending tourists fleeing.

Smoke and Mirrors

The government's answer: a new university admissions platform and loans for school renovations. Loans. For repairing schools. President Emmanuel Macron called for classes to resume calmly, arguing that "young people have been heard."

Pierre Sourzat, head of the "Lycéens!" group, told RMC otherwise. "The president hasn't listened to us. It's smoke and mirrors. There's a bit of polish on the surface, but once you scratch beneath it, there's nothing there." He said the admissions overhaul does nothing about the shortage of higher education places, and that the class-size plan covers only 10th-grade classes. "We were asking for all year groups," he said.

France 24 reported that with the eurozone's second-largest economy on the brink of recession and under pressure to rein in its debt, the government has limited scope to appease protesters through additional spending. The austerity arithmetic is stated plainly: the money isn't there for schools, because the debt is there for the markets.

Blockades, Not Petitions

High schools reopen Monday after the autumn break, and the students aren't waiting for permission. "It will be more significant from Tuesday, but we know that some schools will be blocked as early as tomorrow," Sourzat said. "We support all our comrades who are blocking their schools from tomorrow." Sabrine Kharbach, spokeswoman for the Union Etudiante, said blockades of universities and high schools would take place Tuesday and Thursday. Student groups and labor unions are calling nationwide protests those days.

Police, the national police official told AP, are preparing for more tensions. The state's response to a generation asking for working classrooms is already scheduled, staffed and armed.