French police fired teargas at demonstrators on Tuesday as school protests spread across the country, in what Reuters described as the biggest day of the demonstrations so far. Riot officers clashed with protesters, and Reuters reported that some participants started fires, according to the BBC.
The demonstrations were expected to draw tens of thousands of people in Paris alone, Dawn reported. Reuters carried a live account of riot police confronting protesters during the nationwide day of student action.
CNN characterized the student protests as unprecedented and reported that participants are angry, though the available material does not set out the specific grievances behind the movement. The scale of Tuesday's turnout, and the confrontations that followed, marked an escalation from earlier days of the demonstrations.
The unrest was not confined to the capital. The BBC reported that school demonstrations had spread across France, with protesters lighting fires and clashing with police in multiple locations. Details on injuries, arrests or property damage were not available in the source material.
French authorities have not yet commented on the day's events in the reporting summarized here, and no casualty figures have been confirmed.
What to watch next: whether the protests continue at the same scale in the coming days, and how the French government responds to the largest wave of school demonstrations reported so far.
