Students Clashed With Police In Paris After Barricading The Doors Of Their High Schools

The students — many of which are not old enough to actually vote — took to the streets to march against both French presidential candidates.

Students in Paris, France, Thursday barricaded the entrances of several high schools around the city in protest against the final two candidates of the French presidential election, centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen.

Live from Paris following students protesting the French elections. https://t.co/jOclcXBn6q

You can watch a full Periscope livestream of the demonstration in the tweet above.

The protest called #BlocusNeFnNiMacron or "Blockades Against The National Front And Macron." Protesters told BuzzFeed News that it was organized on Facebook.

L'ambiance à Voltaire 😂#BlocusNiFnNiMacron

BuzzFeed News followed the protest from Lycée Voltaire, a high school in central Paris. From the beginning of the morning there was heavy presence of anti-fascist activists wearing black masks.

At Lycee Voltaire in Paris where protesters have blocked the entrances

At one point, seen in the video below, students attempted to block traffic and punched through the window of a van attempting to pass.

Protesters are stopping traffic. Just smashed through the window of a car passing through.

Students from across the city assembled in Place de la République and then marched through the city. They chanted things like "all the world hates the national front" and "Not Macron, not Marine, not for country, not for boss."

Clashes with riot police started shortly after the students started marching. The first incident of tear gas was deployed after protesters overturned a recycling bin and began throwing bottles at the police.

Protesters proceeded to clash with police for almost two hours as they attempted to make their way to Place de la Bastille.

Storefronts were vandalized and bus stops were sledgehammered. The march was stopped just beyond Place de la Bastille after police used tear gas to break up the crowd, which had grown to several hundred people.

It should be noted that many of the protesters in Thursday's demonstration are not actually old enough to vote.

Several Parisians interviewed by BuzzFeed News who were old enough to have voted in the first round last Sunday said that they were upset at the lack of a clear left-wing, socialist candidate. Many who supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the head of the Socialist party, said they did not plan to vote in the second round.

Which is reflective of a larger conversation happening among French voters currently.

Thursday's demonstration was the second large-scale protest that has turned violent since Sunday.

Many protesters told BuzzFeed News that they plan to protest again on May 1. The first of May in France is called Fete du Travail or Labor Day and it's typically a day where French trade unions and other organizations march for worker's rights.

Topics in this article

Skip to footer