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."
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."
(That newly remodeled school cost 77,000,000.00 Euro (equals 86,624,846.00 US Dollars)
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."
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.
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."
Read more here: https://rmx.news/article/under-siege-rioters-set-fire-to-the-entrance-of-vauquelin-high-school-in-paris-and-block-the-exit-with-100-students-and-staff-inside/