One-year-old baby struck by fireworks in violent student protests raging across France
A toddler was hit with a firework outside Paris on Tuesday as 450,000 people swarmed the streets in violent clashes with police to join in the raging student protests against France’s failing economy.The one-year-old was near a school in Santi-Cyr-l’Ecole, in the outskirts of Versailles, when a firework slammed into its stroller, police said.The child was rushed to the hospital and treated for tinnitus, while a high school student taking part in the protests that have rocked France arrested, France’s RMC radio reported.The incident was the latest instance of civilians being caught in the crosshairs of the raging unrest, with another 16-year-old student cuffed after he allegedly doused a science teacher with gasoline in La Cioat.Footage of the horrific Friday incident shows an inferno blazing in the street near La Méditerranée high school — after three people set fire to a tree outside the school’s gate.The teacher is seen trying to chase away the students before one of them throws a bucket of gasoline at him just a few feet away from the blaze.When the teacher tries to back away from the flames, the student can be seen running up behind him and kicking the man before taking off.The scene mimicked several other encounters in recent weeks, with police confirming several teachers and headmasters have had gasoline dumped on them.Education Minister Édouard Geffray told French lawmakers on Wednesday that 24 schools had been set ablaze or vandalized to such an extent that they would be shut for several weeks, impacting at least 30,000 students.At least 2,000 schools were blockaded or closed Wednesday, according to France’s students’ union, in what has become the largest day of the current protests to date.The unrest, which originated as a call to address poor conditions in France’s underfunded school system, has swelled into riots in some of the most explosive protests the country has seen in decades.Police have fired tear gas and water cannons at prote...