Police and students clash over teachers’ salaries (VIDEOS)

Footage circulating on social media showed clashes between demonstrating teachers, students, and riot police in Paris early Thursday, amid a week of protest action urging the French government to answer a series of demands from school staff about their pay and conditions.

Education sector staff in France are seeking to secure an improvement in recruitment, working conditions, and wages, urging Emmanuel Macron’s government to end “its policy of degradation of the public service.” 

Police began making arrests at the protests outside some Parisian schools on Thursday morning, sparking a confrontation with activists in which a number of students were apparently dragged to the ground and detained by authorities as law enforcement sought to break up the blockades.

Sud Education, a union that backed the demonstrations, called for the release of detained activists after the police response, adding that it hoped that “there would be no legal or administrative lawsuit” filed against them over the protest.

Before the protest, a joint statement from the CGT, FIDL, FO, FSU, MNL, and Solidaires trade unions called for a day of mobilization on Thursday, claiming that “no one can ignore the social and economic” situation facing teachers.

The French government has not yet publicly commented on the police response to the protests.