New incidents broke out on Monday in front of the Joliot-Curie high school in Nanterre, where young people fired mortars of fireworks towards this establishment in western Paris, agitated for a week by catch-all demands from students. “It looks like a movie!” Exclaimed Monday “impressed” a second high school student who requested anonymity. “I saw boys being beaten to the ground by police.”
The five young people not all from Joliot-Curie
Monday morning, at the start of classes, a dozen hooded people fired fireworks towards the Joliot-Curie multipurpose high school, located not far from the administrative center of Nanterre, according to a video by journalist Clément Lanot posted on Twitter . People also fired fireworks at another high school in Nanterre, the Claude-Chappe establishment, said a police source.
Activists invade headquarters #LVMH and shops #Louis Vuitton to denounce the use of fur by the luxury brand. pic.twitter.com/QoBFunLlNS
— Clement Lanot (@ClementLanot) October 17, 2022
Five minors were arrested and placed in police custody following these incidents, according to the Nanterre prosecutor’s office. According to a source familiar with the matter, these five young people are not “all” students of Joliot-Curie.
Clashes between young people and police the previous week
Around 10 a.m., the situation had become calm again, noted an AFP journalist. Nine vehicles of mobile gendarmes secured the surroundings of the establishment and mediators from the city of Nanterre dialogued with teenagers. These incidents took place when scuffles between young people and police had already taken place last week.
On Sunday, the Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye declared on RTL that it was important “to find a situation of calm” allowing “dialogue between the stakeholders” in this high school “which has had difficulties for many years”. “Each high school student has his own claim,” explained Jean-Pierre Bellier, deputy mayor of Nanterre in charge of educational action, present on the scene on Monday. One of the most shared: strengthening homework help, which was accepted by the Versailles Academy last Thursday.
Dress controls denounced by high school students
“Lies”, lambasted Racha, in the final year, on Monday. “They said it was going to be put in place from October 17, but we have to wait until after the (All Saints’) holidays, when it’s important,” she told AFP. High school students also denounced clothing checks at the entrance to the establishment. “Staff clumsiness,” said Jean-Pierre Bellier. “In truth, most students don’t discuss having to take the veil off when they enter high school.”
For the deputy mayor, “the spark that ignited the powder” was the transfer of a trade unionist teacher, Kai Terada, at the end of September. High school students have shown their support for him, and several teachers’ unions have accused the Versailles Academy of “union discrimination”. “In truth, few know him but there is a kind of myth around him because he has the reputation of being an excellent teacher”, explained Jean-Pierre Bellier.
Classes “assured” on Monday despite the clashes
Kai Terada, math teacher and co-secretary of the Sud Education 92 union, said the idea that high school students had blocked the school to protest against its situation was “completely delusional”. “It was not that at all”, he assured the website freeze frame, “their motives were quite clear”. Monday, despite the clashes, the academy of Versailles indicated that “the courses were provided” by the teachers who did not exercise their right of withdrawal. A SVT teacher, however, regretted to AFP not “having been able to teach her students for a week”.
The establishment was first blocked smoothly last Monday by students, scuffles broke out the next day. And new incidents involving around fifty young people with masked faces on Thursday, according to the prefecture, forced the rectorate to close the high school of 1,700 students the next day. Of the 16 people taken into custody last week, four were summoned to the juvenile court on December 1 for “aggravated violence”. The administrative court of Versailles examined on Monday an appeal by the teacher against his “forced” transfer.