SAINT-DENIS, France, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined French high-school students demanding better learning conditions on Tuesday as a day of mostly peaceful blockades and street marches was again marred by flying projectiles, police charges and tear gas.
Four weeks into nationwide protests over teacher shortages, classroom overcrowding and dilapidated school buildings, more than 161,000 people took to the streets of major cities, according to interior ministry figures. That was down from 266,000 on a similar day of action a week ago.
The government has pledged to address the protesters' grievances, but with public finances already strained and borrowing costs at decades-high levels, it has limited options to invest in public services despite pressure from the streets.
The day started with pupils clustered outside schools with placards and megaphones. In Saint-Denis, a working-class suburb north of Paris, Thunberg joined one of the gatherings.
"We are inspired by the young people who are demanding their basic rights," she told reporters outside Lycee Paul Eluard, one of the schools where the protest movement first gained traction.
"Whether it's not funding schools enough, or the climate crisis, or social injustice crises ... it's about time that young people are stepping up and reclaiming that future."
In front of Paris City Hall, a youth orchestra played Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony". Some musicians had protest stickers on their cellos and violins.
CAR SET ON FIRE IN PARIS
The education ministry said 214 schools were closed, down from 800 on a similar protest day a week ago. It said 94.2% of high schools were open.
Six months out from a presidential election that polls suggest could usher in the first far-right government since World War Two, the youth protests, which have been supported by the left, have added to a sense of uncertainty and polarisation.
While most demonstrators marched peacefully on Tuesday, riot police charged and fired tear gas in locations in Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg and Nantes, while a fringe of protesters lit fires, vandalised property and hurled objects at police.
In central Paris, at least one car was set on fire during running confrontations between police and protesters down a central, tree-lined avenue.
In Lyon, the local authorities asked organisers to call off a march after a group of "hostile individuals" preceding the main procession vandalised shops and a petrol station and clashed with police.
While there was no immediate information on who was involved, it is not uncommon in France for street protests to attract so-called "casseurs", a fringe of rioters who seek to confront police and destroy property.
HARD-LEFT LEADER MELENCHON JOINS MARCH
The protest movement and the police response have elicited polarised responses from leading contenders to replace Emmanuel Macron in next year's election.
Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has a chance of reaching the runoff according to polls, joined one of the marches in Paris, where young protesters chanted his name.
"The police are losing their breath running after young people to beat them up and injure them," he said in a post on X.
"The only ones not losing their breath are the young people bravely protesting," he added, accusing the media of failing to show the extent of police brutality.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner in the presidential race according to polls, has denounced violence by protesters and called for those who have damaged schools – or their parents if they are minors – to pay for repairs.
The government has already introduced a bill that would allow precisely that. It is going through parliament.
(Additional reporting by Janis Laizans, Clotaire Achi, Abdul Saboor, Sudip Kar-Gupta and Dominique Vidalon; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Alex Richardson)
