France braces for national day of school protests as boy loses hand | France

France is bracing itself for a national day of protests and high-school blockades as a youth protest movement gathers pace amid a growing debate over the scale of the police response.

In one incident, a 15-year-old protesting against what demonstrators said were France’s dilapidated ⁠and understaffed ​schools ‌had his hand ‌blown off outside a high school in the northern town of Lens, the local prefect François-Xavier Lauch ‌said.

Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, declined to comment on the exact circumstances, but said that between 150 and 200 protesters had been hurling a series of objects at police when riot officers intervened. It was uncertain if the incident had involved a police stun grenade or how the injury happened. Lauch said ​an investigation had ​been opened.

The family of a 16-year-old school pupil in Tours also filed a complaint about police violence after he lost sight in his right eye last week. The state prosecutor said the boy’s injuries were in line with the impact from a police rubber bullet. A police investigation is under way.

The French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, had earlier attempted to calm the protests by accepting schoolchildren’s grievances as “legitimate” and saying the government must listen.

Lecornu ordered ministers to tackle the students’ five major demands. These include organising the replacement of absent teachers, in recognition that pupils in some areas miss months of teaching because of staff absences – even in key exam years. Lecornu also called for a review of France’s lengthy school days, which are among the longest in Europe.

The government will also look at repairs to dilapidated school buildings. Children on blockades across France have described water leaking into classrooms during class, cockroaches, collapsing ceilings and unbearable heat in summer. Lecornu said ministers must come up with proposals by the end of the month.

Sophie Binet, the head of the leftwing CGT trade union, said the government had been late in offering to tackle the schoolchildren’s demands. She said the number of absent teachers who were not replaced had doubled in 10 years and class sizes were at a record high.

“Amid such anger, a few measures just for show aren’t going to satisfy demands,” Binet said. She called for the government to instead stop all budget cuts as well as cuts to teachers’ positions.

Student unions have called for a national day of protest on Tuesday with more schools expected to be barricaded. Thousands of trade unionists, teachers, public sector workers and parents’ groups are expected to join marches of support in cities and towns across France.

Binet said trade unionists would march to ensure there was no violence on the edge of any protests on Tuesday, as she criticised heavy policing. “We’ve been appalled by what we have seen over the past 10 days and by the unprecedented crackdown that the government has organised against the protests by high school students,” she said.

University students continued to support the school protests on Monday, with up to 40 university buildings blockaded across France. Philippe Baptiste, the minister for higher education, told French radio he felt student and high school protests could intensify with the national protests due too take place on Tuesday.

Between 400 and 500 high schools are expected to remain completely or partly closed on ⁠Monday out of a total of 3,700, the minister said.

A government spokesperson Maud Bregeon told CNews television on Monday: “Our priority is to restore order.”

The protests began in late September ‌at a high school ‌in a Paris suburb over teacher shortages. The government was taken by surprise as protests then spread nationwide, amid anger at social inequality and a lack of investment in the education system.

Since last Monday, about 5,000 people, mostly ‌teenagers, have been arrested across France and dozens injured.

Teachers have also been injured. Damage to property is estimated in the tens ​of millions of euros.