THOUSANDS of French students have clashed with cops and hurled projectiles in nationwide riots – with hundreds of teenagers arrested.
Furious pupils torched bins, unleashed fireworks and battled riot as protests erupted outside across on Tuesday.
At least 440 people – most of them minors – were detained as the school revolt descended into violent clashes.
Some protesters even hurled hydrochloric acid at officers in seven terrifying incidents, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.
A staggering 48 members of the security forces were injured as cops fought back with batons and tear .
Nuñez told BFMTV: “We don’t have the final tally yet, but I’m told two- thirds [of detainments] led to police custody.
“Violence is never legitimate. There is nothing that justifies violence.
“There is nothing that justifies showing up at institutions to demonstrate, masked, with your face disguised, carrying projectiles, and waiting for the intervention of law enforcement just to go after them.”
The chaos erupted as thousands of pupils protested over crumbling schools, overcrowded classrooms, gruelling timetables and a shortage of teachers.
Around 400 schools were reportedly hit by riots, while teaching was completely halted at more than 40 lycées – the French equivalent of sixth-form colleges.
Violence flared from Rennes and to Lille and the Alpes-Maritimes as the movement spread far beyond its origins around Paris.
In the capital’s communist-run suburb of Malakoff, dozens of teenagers clashed with police after fireworks were set off near a railway station.
Protesters screamed “la jeunesse est dans la rue” – “youth is in the streets” – as smoke and the deafening blasts of fireworks filled the air.
One stunned resident in neighbouring Vanves warned: “Watch out, there’s a riot.”
In Lille, dramatic scenes showed rubbish containers ablaze outside a school, while clashes were also reported between police and pupils in .
Up to one in ten high-school entrances in Paris were reportedly blockaded.
Masked youngsters perched on dumpsters outside the Arago school beneath a placard reading “Macron explosion”, while another banner at the Hélène-Boucher school declared: “Fewer cops, More money.”
The latest mayhem came just a day after a teenage protestor was blasted in the face with a police grenade launcher from close range during another school blockade.
Horrifying footage from Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône in Val-d’Oise shows the youngster confronting riot police outside the Château d’Épluches vocational school on Monday.
The footage shows an officer appearing to strike at the teenager before the youngster kicks towards the cop’s abdomen.
Moments later, an officer fires a projectile from a Cougar grenade launcher at close range, striking the boy in the face and sending him crashing to the ground.
The stricken teenager is seen clutching his face before other youngsters rush over and drag him away.
His devastated mum later told Le Parisien his mouth had been “torn apart.”
“All his upper teeth have been broken…We don’t know yet what’s left of his lower teeth,” she said.
The teenager suffered several broken teeth and was taken to hospital in Pontoise.
Two investigations have since been opened into the explosive confrontation – including a probe by France’s police watchdog into the officer’s use of the launcher and another into alleged violence against a police officer.
Trade union chief Sophie Binet branded the footage “extremely shocking” and called it an act of “police brutality.”
She said: “These events must be fully investigated and the necessary sanctions imposed.
“If high school students want to mobilize, they must be able to do so, and the conditions must be in place to allow them to express their demands.
“We cannot teach them about democracy at school and then, when they want to express themselves in a democracy, send the police after them,” Ms Binet said.
The school rebellion has been gathering pace since last week, with pupils furious over budget cuts to education.
The Union Syndicale Lycéenne said the protests were fuelled by a “shortage of teachers and staff, dilapidated schools, overcrowded schedules and classes”.
It blamed “ten years of Macron’s policies and the lack of resources in the national education system”.
But the spiralling violence has triggered a bitter political row over the protests.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu acknowledged that problems inside French schools “must be heard and addressed”, while fiercely condemning the violence surrounding some blockades.
He said on X: “Pupils have a right to safety. Staff have a right to protection.
“Police officers have a right to respect when carrying out their duties. The difficulties in the lycées must be heard and addressed.
“Violence must be condemned unequivocally and those responsible held to account.”
Hard-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, meanwhile, accused the government of a brutal crackdown.
“The students … are harmless,” he said on social media.
“The Lecornu government has ordered repression. This brutality is irresponsible and has a clear racist undertone.”
The turmoil erupted on the same day thousands of firefighters, teachers and other public-sector workers joined a nationwide strike over pay and looming budget cuts.
More than 5,000 firefighters were reportedly given pride of place in a Paris march after crews complained that this summer’s ferocious wildfires had exposed shortages of equipment and manpower.
The unrest heaps fresh pressure on Lecornu’s government as it attempts to push through its 2027 budget in a hung parliament.
