Over 600 detained as French school protests turn violent in Marseille

More than 600 people have been detained nationwide and dozens of police and gendarmes injured as a wave of French secondary-school protests escalated into violence on Thursday, the interior minister said, according to Agence France-Presse. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu opened an interministerial crisis unit at 13:00 local time in response, 20 Minutes reported.

The worst of Thursday's unrest hit Marseille, where protesters set fire to a bus in the 14th arrondissement and looted and torched a fire engine outside Lycee Saint-Exupery, Actu.fr and 20 Minutes reported. A firefighter was lightly injured when crews were surrounded by "hundreds of young people" and had to leave the scene, according to the police prefecture cited by 20 Minutes.

A bus driver for transport operator RTM was assaulted in Marseille, prompting the operator to suspend its entire network, Actu.fr reported. Marseille's marine firefighters said they responded to 52 rubbish and bin fires on Thursday alone. Around 40 people were detained in the city since the morning, the police prefecture said, according to 20 Minutes. Trams were also halted in Aix-en-Provence and Aubagne because of the protests.

A television journalist covering the blockade outside Lycee Saint-Exupery was surrounded and struck while filming, and his camera was destroyed, broadcaster M6 said on social media, adding that it would file a criminal complaint. The regional authority Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur said an "unacceptable line had been crossed" after reporting that staff at Marseille's Lycee Victor-Hugo had been assaulted.

The unrest, which began in Ile-de-France around two weeks ago over complaints of too few teachers and overcrowded classrooms, has since spread to most of France's major cities, 20 Minutes reported. More than 300 separate actions and 169 school blockades were recorded nationwide on Thursday, according to police figures cited by 20 Minutes. A fire also destroyed the entrance hall of Nantes's Lycee Nelson Mandela this week, an incident covered separately.

RTM's president posted on social media expressing support for the bus drivers targeted and acknowledging students' demands as legitimate, while condemning the violence as damaging to their message, Actu.fr reported. "Don't let violence speak in your place," she wrote, calling for calm.