PARIS: Some 50 schools in Paris and the rest of France were being disrupted on Friday as students continued protests sparked by the deportation of foreign pupils.
The protests began on Thursday after the high-profile deportation of a 15-year-old Roma girl, Leonarda Dibrani, and the expulsion of another 19-year-old student to Armenia on Saturday.
Amid rising anger, sources in President Francois Hollande’s government said it would make a statement about Dibrani at the weekend, after an investigation into how her expulsion was handled.
The Socialist government has raised the possibility of changing policy so that currently enrolled students cannot be expulsed from France. Much of the anger has focused on how Dibrani was forced to get off a bus full of classmates in the midst of a school outing before she was deported with the rest of her family to Kosovo.
At least 23 schools in the Paris region were taking part in the protest, with many classes empty and the entrances to some schools blocked.
Steven Nassiri, the head of the Fidl students’ union, said protests were taking place at about 50 schools across the country.
Protesters were demanding that Dibrani and the other expelled student, Khatchik Kachatryan, be allowed to return to France to continue their studies.
At the Lycee Charlemagne secondary school in Paris’s Marais district, rubbish bins were piled up in front of the entrance and a banner had been unfurled reading: “Charlemagne is mobilising for Leonarda and Khatchik”.
“These are students just like us. They must absolutely be allowed to return to France,” said one of the protesters, Heloise Hakimi.
“We are creating a movement that is growing in France to demand their return,” she said.
Education Minister Vincent Peillon has urged the students to return to classes and stop preventing other pupils from attending school.
An afternoon march was planned for later Friday, with several prominent left-wing figures expected to attend.
Some of the protesters have also called for the resignation of Manuel Valls, the controversial interior minister who has defended the expulsion and sparked anger last month by saying Roma migrants could not integrate into French society.
Dibrani was deported after being detained on Oct. 9 in the eastern town of Levier, though her case only came to light Wednesday when a non-governmental organisation highlighted the incident.
Her family was deported after all of their formal requests for asylum were rejected.
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Protesters disrupt French schools over expulsions
Protesters disrupt French schools over expulsions
Myanmar expels East Timor envoy after rights group complaint against junta
- Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military ousted the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar has ordered the head of East Timor’s diplomatic mission to leave the country within seven days, state media quoted the foreign ministry as saying on Monday, in an escalating row over a criminal complaint filed by a rights group against Myanmar’s armed forces.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military ousted the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a wave of anti-junta protests that have morphed into a nationwide civil war.
Myanmar’s Chin state Human Rights Organization (CHRO) last month filed a complaint with the justice department of East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, alleging that the Myanmar junta had carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity since the 2021 coup.
In January, CHRO officials also met East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, who last year led the tiny Catholic nation’s accession into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is also a member.
CHRO filed the complaint in East Timor because it was seeking an ASEAN member with an independent judiciary as well as a country that would be sympathetic to the suffering of Chin State’s majority Christian population, the group’s Executive Director Salai Za Uk said.
“Such unconstructive engagement by a Head of State of one ASEAN Member State with an unlawful organization opposing another ASEAN Member State is totally unacceptable,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
A spokesman for the Myanmar junta did not respond to calls seeking comment.
In early February, CHRO said East Timor’s judicial authorities had opened legal proceedings against the Myanmar junta, including its chief Min Aung Hlaing, following the complaint filed by the rights group.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry said East Timor’s acceptance of the case and the country’s appointment of a prosecutor to look into it resulted in “setting an unprecedented practice, negative interpretation and escalation of (public) resentments.”
East Timor’s embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via email.
The diplomatic spat comes as the Myanmar military faces international scrutiny for its role in an alleged genocide against the minority Muslim Rohingya in a case being heard at the International Court of Justice.
Myanmar has denied the charge.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military ousted the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a wave of anti-junta protests that have morphed into a nationwide civil war.
Myanmar’s Chin state Human Rights Organization (CHRO) last month filed a complaint with the justice department of East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, alleging that the Myanmar junta had carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity since the 2021 coup.
In January, CHRO officials also met East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, who last year led the tiny Catholic nation’s accession into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is also a member.
CHRO filed the complaint in East Timor because it was seeking an ASEAN member with an independent judiciary as well as a country that would be sympathetic to the suffering of Chin State’s majority Christian population, the group’s Executive Director Salai Za Uk said.
“Such unconstructive engagement by a Head of State of one ASEAN Member State with an unlawful organization opposing another ASEAN Member State is totally unacceptable,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
A spokesman for the Myanmar junta did not respond to calls seeking comment.
In early February, CHRO said East Timor’s judicial authorities had opened legal proceedings against the Myanmar junta, including its chief Min Aung Hlaing, following the complaint filed by the rights group.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry said East Timor’s acceptance of the case and the country’s appointment of a prosecutor to look into it resulted in “setting an unprecedented practice, negative interpretation and escalation of (public) resentments.”
East Timor’s embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via email.
The diplomatic spat comes as the Myanmar military faces international scrutiny for its role in an alleged genocide against the minority Muslim Rohingya in a case being heard at the International Court of Justice.
Myanmar has denied the charge.
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