An estimated 500,000 lycee students descended onto the streets of France yesterday intent on demanding more teachers, smaller classes, better security and less demanding schedules.
Thirty thousand students mar ched in Paris, but the festive atmosphere was ruined when young men from the immigrant suburbs showed up at the Place de la Nation two hours before the demonstration started. The casseurs - literally "breakers" - went on a three-hour rampage, smashing shop windows, telephone booths and glass bus shelters with hammers, tipping over and burning dozens of cars and clashing with policemen and peaceful students.
It was the biggest turnout in two weeks of demonstrations which last Tuesday brought 100,000 pupils on to the streets. The independent student association FIDL dubbed the show of force "a success" and said the trouble "was caused by groups who were not part of the protesters".
Shops were looted and four people were injured, including a policeman with serious wounds, and 100 youths were arrested.
Mr Issam Krimi (18), president of the National Union of Lycee Students, stood in the centre of the Boulevard Raspail as the march dead-ended into a wall of riot police a few blocks from the education ministry. "We wanted the public to realise we're making legitimate demands," he said, "but the casseurs have damaged the credibility of our movement."
From south-west Bordeaux, where 16,000 high school pupils massed in sunshine on the city square, to eastern Lyons where a crowd of 13,000 turned out, students moaned about overcrowded classrooms, a shortage of teachers, poor facilities and heavy workloads.
"We have had enough of promises, promises," said a member of the FIDL. "This is only the beginning, we will kick up a storm," said Thomas Vandamme (19) in Paris.
The revolt of the lyceens started in the provinces two weeks ago and, although poorly organised, spread across the country. Teenagers speak of "October '98", recalling the student rebellion of 30 years ago. "Yes, we want to relive the events of May '68," Assia Belil (15) said. The Communist Youth stickers on her clothes proclaimed: "Whatever happens, tomorrow's world belongs to us."
Four police cars sped past with lights flashing and sirens howling. Around the corner, students played bongo drums on the pavement outside the five-star Lutetia Hotel. Those shopkeepers who had not shut down for the day stood in doorways, nervously watching the groups of young men in track suits and running shoes who stared back at them.
The Minister for Education, Mr Claude Allegre, has said repeatedly that the students are right, and promises that their demands will be met next year, but the lyceens are impatient.
"Do I have to remind people that the national education budget has gone from Ffr 198 billion in 1988 to Ffr 345 billion in 1998?" Mr Allegre said. "Today, at secondary level, there is one professor for 11 students, which shows that the basic problem is one of distribution. There are still classes without professors and professors without classes."
Statistics show that more than half of students attending staterun lycees sit in classes of more than 30 pupils, 29 per cent of them in classes of more than 34 and some in classes of more than 40 pupils - overcrowding which the students say makes learning impossible. Senior secondary students complain of badly organised timetables and of having to cram more than 30 hours of classes a week with little time left for sporting or extra-curricular activities.
