Police have clashed with protesters in cities across France as students, teachers and parents took part in the biggest day of action in a wave of demonstrations demanding the government tackle understaffed and dilapidated classrooms.
In Marseille, Nantes and Lyon, the street protests began peacefully mid-morning, with the largest demonstration expected in Paris in the afternoon.
Youngsters held aloft smoke flares and placards reading "Under our school books, anger" and “Where are the politicians? Do they even know we exist?”
As the morning went on, plumes of black smoke could be seen billowing into the Lyon sky after protesters lit stacked objects on fire in the city, blocking a road.
Police could be seen clashing with protesters in Lyon as they tried to get roads back open.
Tuesday's demonstrations come after a fortnight of protests which began in Paris's deprived suburbs before spreading across the country.
The government responded with riot police, saying the movement had now morphed into urban violence.
France's interior ministry said 6,100 people have been arrested since the protests began, the overwhelming majority of them minors.
More than 1,800 people are being prosecuted, including 1,483 minors, the justice ministry said, without specifying the crimes.
Rights groups have accused police of using heavy-handed tactics against minors, including batons, tear gas and flash-ball guns.
A teenager's hand was blown off as protesters clashed with riot police in northern France on Monday. The regional newspaper La Voix du Nord said the 15-year-old lost his hand and part of his lower arm after picking up a police dispersal grenade.
The High School Students Union said 1,800 high schools were blockaded or would close for the day on Tuesday.
Some local education authorities have tried to move classes online. The education ministry did not immediately make numbers available.
“When the answer is violence, it means democracy is no longer working," said Hugo Vetzel, a high school leaver in Strasbourg now taking classes for the entrance exams to France's top-tier universities. "There is such a gap between the elites and us.”
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has ordered his ministers to tackle the students' leading demands. Those include ensuring absent teachers are replaced, reviewing the length of the 8am to 6pm school day and the need for longer lunch breaks.
The government would also look at repairs needed to ageing school buildings, said Lecornu, who demanded ministers send in their first proposals by the end of October.
But finding spare cash will be difficult.
The protests have piled pressure on a government trying to narrow a ballooning budget deficit as investor concerns about France's growing debt pile, weak growth and reluctance to rein in spending push bond yields higher. The yield on France's 10-year bonds briefly hit a 24-year high of over 5% last week.
– with Agencies inputs --
