‘Our future is being stolen’: Greta Thunberg joins students protesting in Paris

The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has joined demonstrating high school students in France as the country braced for another day of nationwide protests over chronic teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling buildings.

“Young people are not being included in the conversation,” Thunberg, 23, who became famous as a teenager through school strikes demanding action on the climate crisis, told reporters outside the Lycée Paul Éluard in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.

As lawyers in their robes formed a human chain to protect pupils after multiple accusations of police brutality, she added: “Our future is being stolen from us and, as we have seen here, schools are not getting the investment they need.”

Now in their third week, the protests – backed by unionists, some teachers and radical leftwing opposition politicians – have shaken a government caught between calls for urgent public investment and pressure to reduce France’s ballooning deficit and debt.

Marches around the country drew more than 260,000 protesters last Tuesday and a further 75,000 on Thursday, according to interior ministry figures, and are expected to be repeated on Tuesday in several major cities including the French capital.

“They’re not listening to us, so we’re going to them,” the university students’ union UE, many of whose members are also demonstrating in solidarity, posted on social media. High schools in Paris, Marseille and elsewhere were again blockaded.

French authorities had been hoping that the protests, some of which have resulted in violent clashes with French riot police, would ease up and eventually fizzle out during the two-week half-term school holidays due to start this weekend.

The education minister, Édouard Geffray, who has said 3,000 substitute teachers are being deployed in schools facing the most severe staff shortages, said on Tuesday he expected about 200 of the country’s 3,700 high schools to be completely closed.

French media have reported, however, that at least some classes have been cancelled or disrupted in many more schools, and some lycées – for pupils mostly aged between 15 and 18 – have switched wholly or partly to online learning.

President Emmanuel Macron on Monday called for restraint, saying the issues “deserve time, consultations, discussion and respect”, as government figures showed more than 6,800 people – mainly minors – had been detained during the protests.

About 1,500 people are being prosecuted, the justice ministry has said, while 24 allegations of police brutality against demonstrators are under investigation. More than 200 teenagers, 100 school staff and 700 police officers have been injured.

One young protester has lost a hand from a police stun grenade, prompting the government to ban their use during the protests, while another lost the use of an eye and a third many of his teeth from a teargas canister fired at close range.

Rights groups and students have accused the police of a disproportionate use of force. Six months from a crucial presidential election to replace Macron, rival politicians are jockeying to exploit the protests.

The far-right frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, has highlighted the damage to schools and called for parents ⁠to foot repair bills, while her radical-left opponent, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has praised the protesters ​as “incredible” and denounced police brutality.