Behind the barricades at protest-hit universities

Anti-capitalist graffiti on the walls, broken furniture and piles of litter: protests by students in French universities have blocked teaching and led to hundreds of thousands of euros’ worth of damage in recent weeks, reports AFP.

AFP photographers have spent days and sometimes nights among the students during their protests against higher education reforms introduced by President Emmanuel Macron.
Their images lay bare the anger against plans to introduce more selective admission criteria in a country where any student with a high school diploma can enrol in any public university of their choosing. “University is a right, not a luxury boutique,” one sign on a barricade said.

Students have also joined marches by rail workers, civil servants and others protesting the president's multi-front reform drive. But the protests have also heavily damaged the occupied auditoriums and common rooms, many of which have been strewn with bottles and other rubbish. Riot police have been called in to evict the protesters at some sites but others remain occupied, including at the campus at Nanterre outside Paris, a cradle of the May '68 uprising. Three out of France's 70 universities are completely blocked.
Full report on the France 24 site