French students block school entrance with bins as protests enter third week

French student protesters have blocked the entrances to dozens of high schools nationwide, reigniting protests on a smaller scale as pupils returned from a two-week break.As many as 41 schools had been blockaded by 8.30am GMT, including in Paris, Marseille and Rennes. But the disruption was muted next to the hundreds of schools obstructed over the autumn break.In Lille, near the border with Belgium, people were seen throwing bins onto a fire in front of the International School Montebello as police with riot shields watched on.Students in the southern port city of Marseille pushed rubbish containers to block the entrance to a school after discussions between representatives and the government last week failed to resolve differences.A person puts trash cans into a fire in front of the International highschool Montebello in Lille, northern France on November 2 (AFP/Getty)“We’ve resumed the movement because we were supposedly given answers, but ... it’s clearly not enough,” 16-year-old Meriem told the AFP news agency, sat on one of the dumpsters.Education minister Edouard Geffray offered last week to cap class sizes at 28, to dedicate €4 billion ($4.47 billion) to renovating schools, and to create 15,000 new places in higher education and a new admission system by 2028.But the student representatives, who have been protesting classroom conditions since September 17, said the offers were not enough and they would keep protesting.The return from the autumn break begins on November 2 in a tense atmosphere (Lille pictured) (AFP/Getty)“In terms of blockades—or rather, attempted blockades—the phenomenon is very marginal,” Geffray told radio station France Inter on Monday morning. “We're talking about just a handful of units, a few individual schools.”He said protests are allowed but preventing access to schools is illegal.A wave of so-called ‘Gen Z’ protests has since swept across European countries including Germany, Italy, Belgium and Albania, driven by grievances including the cost of living, the poor state of schools, declining public services and alleged corruption.French high school students gather by the Lycee Charlemagne school in Paris on Monday (Reuters)German ministers threatened tough penalties for looters and rioters who damaged stores over the weekend, after tens of thousands of people rallied in dozens of cities to demand better education and lower living costs.In the financial hub Frankfurt, hooded rioters damaged 17 stores, of which five were looted, Roman Poseck, interior minister of the state of Hesse, told a press conference on Sunday. More than 100 police officers were injured in clashes, and 54 people were arrested.Scuffles also broke out in Paris and other French cities on Saturday evening at the end of a third weekend of nationwide demonstrations. Riot police charged to disperse small groups of rioters at the end of the Paris march and fired tear gas in Lyon and in Toulouse in the southwest. Police officers stand near a fire as highschool students block the International highschool Montebello in Lille (AFP/Getty)There were also tensions at the end of unauthorised protests in Marseille, but calm had returned as night fell.“Security forces held their ground and protected city centres. Public order was maintained,” interior minister Laurent Nunez told reporters after the marches, adding that police had faced “a great deal of violence”.Last month French protests degenerated into violent clashes with the police and outright riots in several cities, with shops looted, in a test for outgoing president Emmanuel Macron's minority government.Labour leaders and student have urged further protests on Saturday and a nationwide strike on November 5.