French students keep up pressure with blockades, protests

PARIS: French students kept up the pressure on the government on Tuesday, blocking the entrances to dozens of high schools and holding protests across the country to demand better learning conditions.

Student protests in France since September have spiralled into larger cost-of-living demonstrations, some marked by fringe violence and accusations of police brutality.

The unrest comes before elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron next year.

With the European Union’s second-biggest economy under pressure to rein in debt, the government has limited scope to appease protesters through additional spending.

Forty-nine of the country’s 3,700 high schools for 15 to 18-year-olds were blockaded on Tuesday morning, the ministry said.