Teenage demonstrators have blockaded more than a dozen high schools in and around Paris, mounting makeshift barricades and setting fire to cars, scooters and trash cans, in protest at the alleged rape of a young black man by police.
Authorities said nine students were arrested in the suburb of Clichy after about 100 youths set two cars and a motorbike alight, threw stones and shattered a shop window.
Eight more people were arrested after a larger crowd of students, some hooded and carrying flares, gathered at Place de la Nation in the east of the capital.
Photo: AFP
Some of the protesters carried homemade banners, including one reading: “Revenge for Theo” — a reference to a man identified as Theo L, who was allegedly raped with a police truncheon this month.
Another student was arrested in the western suburb of Nanterre after allegedly setting fire to mattresses.
Hundreds more demonstrated in several cities outside Paris, including 300 in Montpellier.
A Paris education authority spokesman said extra security measures, including at least one school closure, had been taken after 16 of the area’s 103 high schools were blocked on Thursday morning and 12 others disrupted.
Police and riot squads were on hand, but relatively few violent incidents were reported, a police spokesman said.
The protest was called by a group called Mouvement Inter Luttes Independant, which posted photographs of the demonstrations on Facebook.
It demanded “justice for all victims of police violence” and denounced “racist spot checks” by police on students.
French Minister of Education, Higher Education and Research Najat Vallaud-Belkacem appealed for calm.
“Young people’s emotion over the Theo affair is understandable, but we must let justice take its course,” she said.
Violence is “unacceptable,” she told reporters.
One police officer has been charged with raping Theo L in Aulnay-sous-Bois on Feb. 2 and three others have been charged with assault.
Four officers arrived at a housing estate in the northern Paris suburb, and began stopping youths and asking to see identity papers. Theo L, 22, was allegedly forced to the ground, beaten and subsequently raped with a police baton, suffering such serious injuries that he needed emergency surgery.
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