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Students riot for their teachers' jobs in the streets of Paris

by Amy Judd | April 10, 2008 at 10:12 pm

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Twenty thousand students and teachers took to the streets in Paris today to protest against the government's cost-saving reforms that will cut thousands of teaching jobs next year.
Police however, were also on the streets and took some tough measures to try and bring down the demonstration.

AP Television footage showed projectiles being hurled at riot police, as skirmishes broke out between police and demonstrators on the Left Bank of the capital.

Police also used tear gas to quell pockets of violence on the edges of the protest.

Thousands of police officers in full riot gear have been deployed after a similar demonstration turned violent last Tuesday when trouble-makers lobbed bottles and threw stones.

Earlier one teacher taking part in the rally told The Associated Press that the job cuts will affect quality of education in France.

"We are against the laying off of jobs in the field of education because we think it would be absolutely impossible for us to teach decently to the students that we have," he said.

The reforms are part of French president Nicolas Sarkozy's overall plans to cut government spending.

Demonstrators also fear that Sarkozy's overall reforms will erode the protection they get from social and labour unions that underpins French society.

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Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 22:17 on April 10th, 2008

amyjudd, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Hughes

at 01:19 on April 11th, 2008

This is partially inaccurate and potentially misleading. I've covered all of these students demonstrations in the past 2 weeks, as a photographer, and police never tried to "bring down" any of them. On the contrary, what happens is that each time, ahead of the demonstration, a group of youths (usually 200 to 500) is provoking the police by throwing bottles, stones and other objects. They have no banners, they shout none of the demonstrators' slogans, they're just here to have fun and a dose of adrenaline. There is also rivalry between them, as they come from different "banlieues" (suburbs), and fights are not unusual (even between girls). The police has been using force only to catch those protesters who were violent or to stop a fight. They use plain-clothes officers (easily recognizable however because of their police arm-band) who identify suspects and then wait for the right moment to run and catch them. The riot police only come as a backup, to cover their retreat. Tear gas is used in these occasions if too many protesters are potentially aggressive around.

You can see the pictures of these demonstrations here

liamssoft

at 01:43 on April 11th, 2008

nice pics

philippe leroyer

at 01:59 on April 11th, 2008

Just a quick comment : The police didn't try and bring down the demonstration. For more accurate information on that point, read Hugues' comment above (which is, like me, a photographer covering those events).