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‘Under siege’ – Rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and block the exit with 100 students and staff inside

Principal Carole Zerbib said, "It was terrible for the students and the staff, who witnessed an outburst of violence...I think we had rarely seen violence this strong in front of us."

By
- Remix News Staff -
8 Min Read

Masked attackers set fires at the doors of a Paris vocational high school Monday, confining about 100 students and staff inside, as nationwide student protests over school conditions entered another week with thousands already arrested and hundreds reported injured.

At the Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin High School in the 13th arrondissement, Principal Carole Zerbib said a group of about 10 people in hoods, masks and black clothing arrived around 7:50 a.m. as students were arriving. She told BFMTV they looked “very determined, very fast,” and that staff “immediately understood that we were not going to be able to talk with them.”

Zerbib said the group threw full trash bins and other flammable material in front of the entrance, brought a sofa and bicycles to barricade the door, smashed glass with a pair of crutches, and set fires outside using a flammable liquid. A staff member was struck in the face by a shard of glass, BFMTV reported. Firefighters and police were met with mortar fire. Courses were canceled for the day.

A video team from BFMTV recorded flames at the entrance and described staff being blocked as they tried to use an extinguisher, with the principal heard telling confined students to move up to the first floor.

In the video sequence, a BFMTV host stated: “The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit.” The staff speaking from inside the building confirmed they were “under siege.”

Principal Carole Zerbib said, “It was terrible for the students and the staff, who witnessed an outburst of violence…I think we had rarely seen violence this strong in front of us.”

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She said the attackers “were quite organized and had prepared their move,” and that she had been warned by students and teachers of calls on social media to burn the school. “These aren’t my students. These are groups.”

Junior Interior Minister Jean-Didier Berger, speaking on BFMTV after the fires were put out and the school evacuated, called the images “particularly shocking” and said, “These are criminal acts that fall under the law and must be repressed in the harshest way.”

Outside the damaged school, Zerbib took questions from reporters, then stopped when she saw a CNews microphone.

“Which outlet is that?” she asked. When she was told it was CNews, she said, “Oh no, I had said no.” When the journalist replied that it was the press, she said: “I don’t agree. Because I don’t agree with CNews’s editorial line. I think you don’t do any good. You don’t do any good for young people.”

She had earlier told other reporters that as long as police remained outside, “I tell myself it will be all right,” while adding it was “not impossible that they come back, since they want to strike at the symbols of the state.”

The clash came as Education Minister Édouard Geffray said classes would be fully or partly suspended Monday at 400 to 500 of France’s roughly 3,700 high schools because safety conditions were not met. He said 24 schools had been burned or ransacked since the protests spread from the Paris region in mid-September. Organizers have called a further day of action Tuesday, which student unions have labeled “act III.”

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Geffray said Sunday that 78 education staff members had been injured since the unrest began, including “some of them by high schoolers.” In addition, 170 students had been hurt. He said far-left activists had “hijacked” the movement. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said more than 5,000 people have been arrested since last Monday, about 85 percent of them minors, and that more than 300 officers and gendarmes have been injured. Police recorded 1,747 arrests on Friday alone, he told TF1.

Among the cases already opened include a 17-year-old was arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide after a police officer was beaten in Belfort, and a 16-year-old was detained Sunday over the assault of a 59-year-old teacher in La Ciotat who was struck and doused with gasoline.

France: Attempted murder investigation opened after plainclothes police officer beaten unconscious during student riots in Belfort

In Tours, prosecutors said a young protester lost sight in one eye while battling with police.

Students and the Union syndicale lycéenne say they are protesting against reduced teaching staff, overcrowded classes, long schedules, the Parcoursup admissions system and buildings in disrepair. The government has called some of those complaints legitimate while condemning what Nuñez has described as a slide into “riot and urban violence.”

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