Police in Paris Battle 200,000 Angry Students

A protest march by more than 200,000 students against an education bill of Premier Jacques Chirac ended Thursday night in a violent confrontation, with riot police firing tear gas and swinging batons at rock-throwing and taunting demonstrators.

Red Cross workers and French police reported that 40 students and 50 police officers were injured in the battling. Two of the students were seriously injured. The police charge cleared the esplanade of the Invalides, near the tomb of Napoleon and the National Assembly, of tens of thousands of students.

The violence, which was seen live on national television by millions of French viewers, erupted after student leaders reported that they had failed in a meeting to persuade Chirac’s two education ministers to withdraw the bill on university reform that has angered students throughout the country and provoked the long day of protest.

Talks Due Today

Chirac’s office announced that the prime minister will meet with Education Minister Rene Monory and other top advisers today to discuss the legislation.

The protest march and the violence, over a bill that was not one of the key planks of Chirac’s program, amounted to a major challenge to his government. And it is sure to convince many onlookers that the long-slumbering youth of France had regained their political vigor.

Ambulances and police vans could be seen rushing to and from the scene for several hours after the battling broke out. Sounds of tear gas grenades being fired reverberated through the fashionable neighborhood on the Left Bank of the Seine River. So did the hoarse chanting of students.

On television, viewers saw the kind of clashes that had not been seen in France since the student uprisings of 1968. Swinging their batons, helmeted riot police with shields charged into the students while the youths bent low to pick up rocks and toss them at the chargers before scurrying away. Burning cars blocked streets.

The trouble appeared to begin when some angry students tried to break down the barricades that kept them from the National Assembly. To fend them off, riot police, who had surrounded the parliamentary building, pummeled the students with streams of water. The anger subsided for several hours but then flared up again.

Within the National Assembly, leftist deputies called for the withdrawal of the education bill, which is not due to be debated until next week. The repeated raising of the education issue by the leftists on a day when it was not on the agenda led to a suspension of the session.

The evening violence outside the National Assembly was far different from the carnival atmosphere earlier in the day. Police estimated that up to 200,000 students took part, but that estimate seemed conservative.

At one moment, protesters lined the entire route of the demonstration from its starting point at the Place de la Bastille to its ending point at the esplanade of the Invalides. Even then, there were thousands of other students waiting for their turn to march.

As they streamed into the esplanade, which is only a block from the National Assembly, students found the streets lined with vendors selling a variety of snacks. Jazz bands were playing, and many students had obviously arrived for a long night.

Police, who had added an extra force of 3,500 riot police for the day, were obviously worried about the long stay, especially after student leaders reported that their meeting with Monory was a failure.

Unlike 1968 Riots

For some French with long and nostalgic memories, there were the whiffs of 1968 in the air. But the latest demonstration did not seem to resemble the Paris riots of 1968, when students, in a fury at their society, rebelled against it and set off a thunderous series of events that culminated with the resignation of President Charles de Gaulle.

Instead, the present students seem upset not at society as a whole but only at a proposed law that, in their view, would devalue their education and perhaps weaken their chance for jobs.

Faced with a flurry of student strikes and demonstrations over the bill in recent weeks, Chirac has promised to amend it to clear up what he calls “misunderstandings.” Monory repeated this to the student leaders, promising to make important modifications in the bill. But the students insisted that they wanted the bill withdrawn.

“He told us that there is no question of withdrawing the bill,” a bitter student representative reported afterward.

Monory, accompanied by Minister of Higher Education Alain Devaquet, who had prepared the bill originally, told a news conference that he had told the students that “we are prepared to start a dialogue on certain points in the bill.” But the students, Monory said, had refused anything short of withdrawal.

Manipulation Charged

Although there have been accusations by right-wing politicians that the students are being manipulated by the left-wing opposition, the students did not appear to have much outside organizational help. Unlike most political demonstrators in Paris, the students did not have many buttons and stickers to sell or leaflets to distribute. Almost all their placards were lettered by hand.

Alluding to a common complaint that the reforms would make French universities like those in the United States, some students carried a placard with a drawing of a dollar bill showing the face of Devaquet in place of George Washington and sporting the slogan, “No to the faculty of riches.”

The students insist they are upset by three aspects of the legislation drawn up by the 44-year-old Devaquet, who gave up his post as a university professor to join the Cabinet.

The Devaquet bill, following conservative theory, attempts to give the state-funded universities a good deal of autonomy from the central government. But the students protest that, while doing so, the bill would allow universities to raise fees, set up new entrance requirements and give diplomas that would be distinctive from the national diploma that is now awarded by all the universities.

The students insist that all this would make the universities elitist. Analysts say that the student concern has been exacerbated by a system with a high dropout rate before graduation and a low employment rate afterward.

Students from all over France converged on Paris for the demonstration. The French railways had to add 21 special trains to meet the demand. The protesters, who were sometimes joined by their teachers, included both university students and older students from the lycees, the French secondary schools that give their older students courses equivalent to freshman courses in an American university. There were several demonstrations in other cities by students who had remained behind.

For years, many French commentators have deplored the lack of political commitment by French students. The campuses do not even have strong environmental or nuclear disarmament organizations. More than a year ago, students took part in a popular movement protesting against racism. But this was a fashionable stand that had a great deal of support from the Socialist government that was then in power.

The present demonstration, according to some commentators, is the first true outburst of political protest since 1968. The outburst surprised both the Chirac government and many analysts. In a front page editorial, Frederic Gaussen of Le Monde wrote that the demonstration “evidently marked the return of youth into politics.” But he said it was not clear just how. “The movement,” he said, “is a new social object that is still not identified.”