Bins as barricades: Angry Paris students blockade schools, protest police brutality

School students across Paris have set up barricades to protest police violence and marched on a city squares after a 21-year-old student was killed nearly two weeks ago by a police flash grenade. Action is escalating across the country.

Bins were stacked up in front of school gates to use as barricades and sit-ins were organized atop the lower-level barriers. “Do not forget, do not forgive,” one of the students’ signs read, as they sat on bins blockading entrances to schools. Some of the bigger barricades were several meters high.

(Tweet corrigé) Le lycée Dorian à Paris bloqué "en hommage à Rémi Fraisse"#AFPpic.twitter.com/d2LSXRPErR

— Marie Giffard (@mariegiffard) November 6, 2014

Some 20 schools across the capital were completely blocked off. Le Figaro newspaper put the figure as high as 25.

On Sunday, around 77 people were arrested in violent clashes when they took to the streets of Paris in unsanctioned protests at the death of 21-year-old Remi Fraisse the previous week, who was killed by a police tear gas grenade when he was among those protesting against a dam project in Sivens in France’s southwest.

Mort de #RémiFraisse: mobilisation des lycéens à Paris http://t.co/04aQ2UkgJmpic.twitter.com/KFldLML1f5

— ☭★uruz (@UruzOZKAN) November 6, 2014

Dam construction is currently suspended and the police have been temporarily banned from using tear gas grenades.
Thursday’s event, according to its Facebook page, was intended for “Justice and truth for Remi and against police violence.”

“We fight for Remi, we fight for us,” the students shouted.

After the barricades were set up, thousands of students gathered near the French capital’s Place de la Nation in protest “against police violence” at around 11am. Traffic in the area was briefly paralyzed as a result of the protest.

Students demanded the prohibition of flash grenades by police. “We demand that justice be done,” the protesters said in a statement.

Two further events are planned for Saturday in Paris and Toulouse.

In Rouen, Normandy, action has also been taking place in support of Remi. Environmental activists have spent a second night in tents in front of the courthouse. Rouen has asked that an interim proceeding to vacate the premises be instigated. A judge was due to consider the request Thursday.