Students clash with police as French officials struggle to end violent school protests

Riot police clashed with high school students across France on Friday, and unions called for teachers to strike as President Emmanuel Macron’s government battled to contain increasingly violent protests over classroom conditions and funding.Tear gas clouded the streets in the eastern city of Strasbourg, fireworks were aimed at police lines in Marseille in the south, and rubbish bins were set ablaze in Rennes in the west.Protesters in Pantin, on the outskirts of Paris, set items, including fences on fire and threw firecrackers at riot police, before running away.After a government crisis meeting on Thursday, a source close to the prime minister said the demonstrations had morphed from a protest movement to urban violence, and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin has said it had been hijacked by “outsiders.”Six months before next year’s presidential election, opinion polls consistently show the deep unpopularity of Macron and his center-right-leaning government.Planned budget cuts, which exacerbate the funding crisis in education, have fueled the discontent.Education Minister Edouard Geffray said 65 education staff have been injured during the unrest, including 40 headteachers.Several students in the Paris region whom Reuters spoke to earlier in the week said they were staying away from the protests on Friday due to escalating violence.Trade unions meanwhile called a teachers’ strike for Tuesday, a week after public-sector workers walked out.“(The violence) is regrettable, but … when demands go unheard for years, and given the political and geopolitical context, there are several conditions that put … students in a real state of anxiety,” teacher Sandra Champain-Seller said.The protests erupted in the Paris region last week but have turned increasingly violent as they spread nationwide.Darmanin told RTL radio that police had arrested 2,000 people, most of them teenagers, since the protests began, adding that parents of those damaging property should pay...