France: more than 5,000 arrested during student protests

More than 5,000 people have been arrested since Monday, during protests by pupils and students in France, the French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, announced tonight for French television TF1.

Nuñez said 1,747 people were arrested today, while 1,954 yesterday.

About 85% of the people arrested were minors, most of them school pupils.

However, the minister clarified that this does not necessarily mean they were pupils of the schools near which they were arrested.

According to the minister, on Friday 735 schools were affected by the protests, 30% fewer than a day earlier. Near 158 schools riots broke out.

Nuñez explained that the security forces intervened systematically, in cases where there were riots, damage to property or acts of violence.

He said the scale of the protests was surprising and attributed their spread, among other things, to social media and the influence of the left-wing party “France Unbowed” (LFI).

According to Nuñez, political mobilisation gave more momentum to the protests, but he added that the situation of violence got out of control.