French protests over school conditions spread, several arrested

In France, students have set fire to bins and erected blockades outside schools in several cities, protesting overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities. Several school principals were injured, harassed or assaulted during blockades at high schools on Thursday, according to reports from regional education authorities, prefectures and union representatives.
According to media reports,more than 500 of France's 3,700 secondary schools faced disruption on Friday, as young people across the country protested over school conditions.The movement, which began in the Paris region in September and rapidly spread nationwide, has seen teenage pupils at lycees in their final years of schooling block access to buildings and clash with police. The students say their school hours are excessively long, conditions inadequate including overheated classrooms, and that there are too many staff absences."For a whole year, we didn't have a science teacher. We don't have any textbooks," said Simon, a 15-year-old who declined to give his surname outside the Turgot high school in central Paris. "And still, we're the lucky ones. It's even worse in the suburbs."
“There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit] in summer, it’s unbearable. There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms,” Raphael, a 17-year-old who withheld his surname for fear of reprisals, told a news news agency outside a protest in Strasbourg.“The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.” His frustration echoes a wave of student anger that has spread across France since last week, as high school pupils protest and grievances snowball into nationwide unrest.
Overcrowded classrooms, unsanitary facilities, and a shortage of teachers is the current state of education in France, youth centre director Laëtitia Degeuse says.Around €3million (£2.5m) worth of damage has been done at nearly 40 schools in Nantes in western France, regional officials say. Fences were torn down, furniture was destroyed, doors were smashed and windows were shattered during the widespread protests. Damage at the Nelson Mandela high school alone will require at least €2 million (£1.7m) to repair following a large fire.
The unrest has become entangled in the race to succeed President Emmanuel Macron next May. The government has accused the far-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the protests. Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said Wednesday that his party “called for nonviolent methods of struggle” and criticised the government’s response as repressive.