“MARKED SLOWDOWN”
The government source said Friday the authorities were seeing a “marked slowdown” in the movement, and told journalists that most of the injured high school students “were not hurt by police action (but were) students who injured themselves accidentally” during the protests.
But many students told AFP they were not relenting. Organisers have called for large-scale demonstrations next week.
“We’re saving our energy for next week,” said one 16-year-old student in the southwestern city of Toulouse.
Alice, a high school student in the southern port city of Marseille, said the education minister’s announcements “are a first step but they’re not enough”.
Student union representative Marius Mesnil said “we’re being offered a few crumbs”, while calling for another wave of demonstrations Tuesday.
On Thursday evening in the capital Paris, police said they had used tear gas in Bastille square to disperse some “high-risk profiles”.
In a bid to placate the anger, Education Minister Edouard Geffray announced late Thursday that some 3,000 substitute teachers would be deployed in the coming days to replace absent staff at the 114 worst-affected high schools.
