This Wednesday morning, the rare students of the Joliot-Curie high school, in Nanterre, who wanted to go to class were greeted by a CRS cordon. The day before, an escalation of tensions during a demonstration in front of the establishment ended with the arrest of fourteen young people, including twelve minors near the school. The reasons given by the police: “armed crowd by masked individuals”, “outrages” and “aggravated willful violence”. The high school students were mobilized for a return of homework help, a better dialogue with the management of the establishment and in support of their teacher Kai Terada, transferred last September.
Placed in police custody, all the young people arrested are in the process of being released, indicates the parquet floor of Nanterre to 20 minutes. Three of them will be summoned before the juvenile court on December 1 to respond to facts qualified as “aggravated violence against a person holding public authority”. “The involvement of other detainees [fait] the subject of a more in-depth study by the prosecution”, specifies a judicial source.
A police response deemed “disproportionate”
” Look ! Samy, a high school student present during the protest, holds out his red, scratched hand. “Yesterday, I had a blue hand,” he describes, before adding that he “took blows from a truncheon”. “When the police gassed, there is a girl who fell on the road, which was not blocked”, says Maxence*. “The max we had was smoke bombs and rocks,” he adds. Them [les policiers], they shoot flashballs at kids in hoodies. It’s disproportionate. »
“The response from the authorities was inadequate, also considers Jean-Pierre Bellier, deputy mayor of Nanterre in charge of education. It is necessary to make the difference between the departmental police, which sometimes has difficulty in adjusting its attitude, and that of Nanterre. “A repression which tends” to create an anti-cop generation “, regrets Samy, student at the Joliot-Curie high school.
Tear gas cloud
“Your child is absent today” received parents this Wednesday morning from the school. “That’s it, it’s the only communication we have with the management, after what happened,” indignant Houria, mother of a final year student. Not reassured, she decided that her son would not go to high school “until[elle] will not have had a discussion with the management, and that there are always CRS in front of the establishment. This Wednesday, many classes were canceled due to lack of students. Since Tuesday evening, the parents have sent a message to each other encouraging them not to “send [les] children in high school to protest”.
From the first blockage on Monday, Houria was afraid to send her son to school. “I wanted him to stay at home on Tuesday, but since the situation was rather calm, at first I called him to tell him to go,” she says. Houria works in a building opposite the school. From the first police charges, she saw a cloud of tear gas through the window, and young people “running in all directions”. She “immediately rushed to recover [son] son “. For this committed former student, “the situation deteriorated enormously” during the demonstrations.
An exceptional allocation of 150 additional hours
“When we come to ask the police to intervene in front of a school, it is because National Education has failed somewhere”, considers Sabrina Sebaihi, Nupes deputy for the 4th district of Hauts-de-Seine. “It is up to the politicians to take measures”, adds the deputy (Nupes) of Val-de-Marne Louis Boyard, who went to the Nanterre police station to “visit the high school students” in police custody. Sabrina Sebaihi wishes in particular “the ban on LBD firing and de-encirclement grenades, all the more so in front of a school. »
The rectorate explains for its part that it wants to respond to the concerns of the students. “In order to support these tuition assistance projects”, he claims to release “an exceptional endowment of 150 additional hours [qui] was granted in high school. This could satisfy high school students who intend to “protest until [leurs] demands are heard”, according to several of them. “But we are going to be as peaceful as possible,” assures Rayan.
* The first name has been changed