Rioter blasts girl within the face with a flamethrower and off-duty cop is kicked unconscious as French pupil protests descend into anarchy

Student protests descended into anarchy across France today with cops beaten unconscious, teachers attacked and shocking video showing a rioter blasting a woman in the face with a flamethrower. 

This week’s protests were initially peaceful and aimed to highlight the poor state of education, but devolved into mindless violence after far-Left political groups encouraged vandalism. 

Those backing the movement say their schooling hours are too long, conditions are poor and there are too few teachers in classrooms. While the government says the complaints are legitimate, they have denounced the scenes of carnage. 

At least 65 staff members have been injured, including 40 high school principals, since the start of the movement, officials said. Some 170 students have been wounded while more than 100 high schools have suffered ‘severe damage’.

Violent hooligans have been terrorising members of the public. In a video taken in Marseilles, a black-clad youth cornered a woman by a bus stop and used a makeshift flamethrower against her. 

The teenage boy was seen lighting up an aerosol can and pointing it directly at her face.

Onlookers screamed as the flames shot at the woman. As she clutched her head, he was seen walking away. The incident on Thursday took place on Place du 4 Septembre. 

Another clip, shot today in the city of Belfort, showed a mob of young men ganging up and attacking an off-duty police officer.

Footage showed the man in casual clothes holding a rioter by his arm. A second agitator rushed the off-duty cop and brought him to the ground. 

He then repeatedly punched the police officer in the face as others joined in, kicking and beating him as he was on the ground. 

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said of the incident on social media that an ‘attempted voluntary homicide’ investigation has been launched. 

He said: ‘These images of rare violence are unbearable. The police officer, deliberately targeted, was hospitalized after losing consciousness. Fortunately, his condition no longer gives rise to major concern at this time. All my thoughts are with him.

‘Everything will be done to identify the perpetrators of this abject act. Total support for the police officers and gendarmes who intervene in difficult conditions, and when they use force, in accordance with my instructions, they are not facing demonstrators but rioters.’ 

Just yesterday, verified footage showed a lone policewoman being chased down a city street and then tripped up by a gang of young men.

The video footage – shot in the Paris suburbs – ended abruptly as the officer, who was grasping a tear gas canister, lay on the ground.  

She is kicked once, before the person filming moves away. They captioned the video ‘police officer swept away’ with laugh-out-loud emojis.

Paris prosecutors today said they had opened an investigation into the incident. 

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez yesterday said: ‘A young trainee lieutenant from the Paris police headquarters was chased, thrown to the ground, and assaulted by several individuals in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.’

He promised to ‘find and prosecute’ the perpetrators of the attack.  

‘The situation is catastrophic,’ one viewer of the video wrote. ‘No one should condone this.’ 

Their sentiments were echoed by former leader of France’s hard-Right National Rally party, politician and lawyer Marine Le Pen.

She wrote on X: ‘The image of this young policewoman, pursued by a howling mob screaming its hatred, thrown to the ground and assaulted, is unbearable.

‘These acts deserve exemplary punishments. Let her know that tonight, millions of French people offer her their warm support.’

National Rally President Jordan Bardella said: ‘Footage of a policewoman being chased through the streets and mobbed on the ground in Paris illustrates what France has become after decades of laxity and mass immigration.

‘How long will we tolerate this barbarism? How long will we let our country sink without reacting?’ 

Riot police have been deployed across the country as young thugs set schools on fire and beat up teachers. 

Education has been disrupted at more than 560 high schools out of the 3,700 in the country. More than 1,000 lycees were affected on Thursday, the interior ministry has said. 

One video taken yesterday in the city of Besançon showed a large crowd screaming as they watched a fight involving a woman and a teenage boy.

In the video, he can be seen grabbing her hair and repeatedly punching her.

A local source told the Daily Mail that the fight was linked to the national protests: ‘There seems to have been a disagreement between this woman and this young man. 

‘She claimed it was foolish to want to set off firecrackers and cause damage. The young man refuted this and appears to have insulted her, which triggered the fight. The young woman threw the first punch.’

Other videos appeared to show male students attacking female education staff. 

Around two-thirds of the more than 2,000 people arrested are in police custody, with up to 90 per cent of them believed to be minors. 

French officials said more than 300 police officers were hurt in yesterday’s violence. 

This number already appears to be rising, with officials in Yvelines, northern France, reporting that 82 arrests have been made this morning. 

Justice minister Gerald Darmanin said today: ‘There is an active and violent minority [participating in the protests]… we’re not entirely sure that they are even high school students themselves.’

Students have accused police of using excessive force and causing injuries by regularly firing tear gas canisters to disperse the protests. 

Intelligence agencies believe the protest movement had been initiated by politicians from the hard-Left, including members of La France Insoumise (LFI).

But senior LFI official Manuel Bompard accused the government of ‘descending into conspiracy theories’. 

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, de-facto leader of LFI, called on students to remain ‘cool-headed’ and to only use ‘non-violent methods’.

But his calls appear to have fallen on deaf ears, as violence continues to spread across the country. 

So far today, at least two Parisian high schools have been set alight. 

Paris firefighters responded to a fire at the Léonard de Vinci high school in the 15th arrondissement, extinguishing flames at the base of the entrance gate. 

In the 13th arrondissement, the entrance to a vocational high school was blackened by flames after a fire involving bicycles and rubbish bins spread to the school’s gates, according to the police headquarters. The fire was extinguished by firefighters just before 8am.  

‘For a whole year, we didn’t have a science teacher. We don’t have any textbooks,’ said Simon, a 15-year-old who declined to give his surname outside the Turgot high school in central Paris.

‘And still, we’re the lucky ones. It’s even worse in the suburbs.’

In the western city of Rennes, the tension was already palpable outside the Jean-Mace high school with students dressed in black and wearing balaclavas standing not far from a heavy police presence.

‘As far as we’re concerned, we’ve won – our school is closed this morning,’ said Lola, 16, who declined to give her last name.

She condemned what she described as police violence: ‘It makes us even angrier – the police have no right to hit us or use tear gas on us.’

Police used tear gas at the Kerichen high school in Brest, in western France, an AFP photographer said.

In the Occitanie region, police seized several weapons from rioters including baseball bats, smoke grenades and even items needed to make Molotov cocktails.  

In Strasbourg, riot police threw tear gas grenades at protesters near a university campus following clashes. 

Tear gas was also used against young people outside the Jean-Pierre Timbaud high school in Aubervilliers, a town on the outskirts of Paris. 

In Toulouse, police helicopters flew overhead as rioters threw stones at police and reporters in front of the Déodat de Séverac high school. 

Education Minister Edouard Geffray said ‘parents must clearly step up and tell their children not to go’ to the protests, adding: ‘What matters now is ensuring our children are no longer out on the streets, because they are in danger.’

In a bid to ease tensions, Mr Geffray is set to take meetings with education unions, parents’ associations and students’ associations today in light of the violence. 

Justice Minister Darmanin said he has asked prosecutors to hold parents liable for damage caused by their children during the protests and ‘pay for repairs’.

The LFI described this as an ‘absurd measure’. 

There are also calls for LFI to be investigated for their role in the protests. 

Bruno Le Maire, former minister under Emmanuel Macron, wrote on X that he was demanding ‘a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the participation of LFI in acts of violence near high schools’.