Liège police declare riot in progress as student unrest escalates

Liège police declared "major riots in progress" on Wednesday evening and issued a BE-Alert telling the city's merchants to close their shops, Belgian news agency Belga reported via 7sur7. The Guillemins train station was also closed for the same reason. "Rioters have ransacked shops and are heading towards Guillemins after being pushed back by police," police said, according to Belga.

The declaration came after a bus shelter was set on fire earlier on Wednesday afternoon at Place de la République française in central Liège, as protests by secondary school and college students against the regional government's education policy continued for a third day. Several hundred young people were present; the crowd remained calm despite the fire, before helmeted police and firefighters arrived and police used tear gas to disperse those present and allow emergency services to intervene, Belga reported.

Several shops in Liège were targeted by groups of young people. A Smartoys store was stormed, according to footage circulating on social media and cited by 7sur7, while windows were smashed at a Fnac store, Dutch-language outlet Het Nieuwsblad reported. Losses from a theft at a video game store were put at €40,000, according to Belga wire reports carried by Gazet van Antwerpen and Het Belang van Limburg. Police separately deployed a water cannon against protesters, the same two outlets reported.

Belga reported at least 33 new arrests in Liège as the student gatherings continued, on top of arrests made over recent days of unrest in the city.

Wednesday's unrest followed a heated session of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation parliament, where opposition lawmakers from the PS, PTB and Greens accused the government of an inadequate response to the student protests. Education minister Valérie Glatigny said she understood students' need to express themselves but not to break and burn property, adding that the violence was overshadowing the students' message. She again denied any reduction in staff supervision or investment in school buildings. Youth minister Valérie Lescrenier said she would travel to Liège on Thursday to meet the protesters.

Earlier on Wednesday, organised marches passed through the city with students chanting slogans and carrying placards, before students from higher education institutions began joining the movement started by secondary pupils, 7sur7 reported.