French Student Protests Spread as Riot Police Clash With Teens Over School Conditions
The French student protests over classroom conditions entered a fifth straight day on Friday, Oct. 2, as riot police and high school students clashed again and hundreds of schools stayed shut or disrupted nationwide. France's education ministry said more than 560 of the country's 3,700 public high schools were affected that day, down from over 1,000 the day before, according to the interior ministry. Police said they took roughly 2,000 people into custody on Thursday alone. The unrest began in the Paris region in late September and has since spread to Toulouse, Lille, Brest, Marseille and other cities, with no clear end in sight before a teachers' strike planned for next week.
Why the French student protests started
The students' core complaints are about resources, not politics in t...