Policing of France's school protests clouds Macron's final months and sparks uproar

In France, teenagers are protesting for better-resourced schools, leading to clashes with one of Europe's largest internal security forces

PARIS -- On one side, legions of determined teenagers protesting for their future by blockading schools and taking part in marches that have sometimes spiraled into violence .

On the other, one of the largest internal security forces in Europe , deployed by the government of an unpopular and outgoing president .

The result, playing out almost daily outside high schools and on the streets of France , is a nationwide storm of unrest. The mayhem of recent weeks — with mass arrests and hundreds of injured — has sparked an uproar in a country steeped in a centuries-old culture of protest . Even some police have turned on the government's handling of the demonstrations.

For President Emmanuel Macron , who leaves office in May, it’s hardly the dream ending to his decade in power. He has faced a succession of protest movements that sapped his popularity and fueled broad criticism of how his ministers use police against demonstrators.

With the high schoolers, the outcry has grown particularly loud. That's partly because the vast majority of the 8,000 people arrested in recent weeks are teenagers under 18 and because police riot-control weapons are blamed for life-changing injuries suffered by some young teens.

The protesters' push for better-resourced schools , particularly in poorer Paris suburbs and other cities and towns, also has a sympathetic audience as France hurts from record poverty and record public debt.

But police complain that they're facing violent rioters who are latching onto the protests and using the crowds as cover to attack officers, pelting them with rocks, fireworks and other projectiles and wreaking havoc with fires, vandalism and other destruction. By the government's count, more than 900 officers and nearly 150 teachers and other school staffers have been wounded.

French history partly explains why protests are veering into confrontations between riot police and some demonstrators who come ready to fight in masks and black clothes, says Walid Hrar, a police officer and union representative in the northern suburbs of Paris.

“This is the country of the French Revolution. Everyone boasts about it, in fact. Some political parties don’t hesitate to say that we need to disobey the law. That’s what Robespierre and other revolutionaries taught us in 1789,” he said.

“France always tends to react rather than anticipate,” he added. "In other words, we’re always going to extremes.”

The police have drawn sharp scrutiny for their efforts to control crowds using a variety of so-called non-lethal weaponry, particularly grenades and other projectiles, but also tear gas, water cannons and riot shields equipped with powerful strobe lights.

"We’re sending poorly equipped, untrained public security police officers to violent demonstrations who are likely to become agitated very quickly out of anger and fear,” said Jean-Marie Godard, an author who specializes in French policing.

Hrar said some of his police colleagues “aren’t specialized in crowd control and aren’t equipped for it.