The grainy footage has horrified France.
asserted
footage → horrify → France
Mael, a 16-year-old schoolboy, is sitting on the pavement in front of a large pool of blood.
asserted
Mael → sit → blood
His right eye has been destroyed by a police rubber bullet during a violent protest outside a high school, the Lycée Balzac, in the cathedral city of Tours.
asserted
eye → destroy → Tours
'Mael was moaning in pain.
asserted
Mael → moan → pain
His eyebrow was swelling.
asserted
eyebrow → swell → ?
He said his eye stung.
asserted
eye → say → ?
We were trying to mop him up with tissues,' recalled Tatiana, who lives next to the school.
asserted
who → try → school
She had watched police and students face off in the morning- long battle ten days ago – just one of many hundreds of protests to have gripped France recently.
asserted
police → watch → France
Furious rioters started fires after Mael collapsed, almost unconscious.
asserted
Mael → start → fires
Today, the walls of the Lycée Balzac are covered in black spray-painted graffiti demanding 'Justice pour Mael!'
asserted
walls → cover → Mael
The doors to the premises are locked and, when we visited this week, we saw the side gates on Rue Pinaigrier scorched.
asserted
gates → lock → Pinaigrier
'It was infiltrators at the protest who torched our school,' Marence Gendre and Camille Bardon, both 16, told us.
asserted
Gendre → torch → us
'They are random men with masks who mobilise their followers on Snapchat.
asserted
who → mobilise → Snapchat
'We saw them that day come out of nowhere.
asserted
them → see → ?
We believe it was their violence that provoked the police to attack with rubber bullets.
asserted
that → believe → bullets
'
Protesters throw stones towards riot police during clashes on the sidelines of a demonstration of high-school students as part of a nationwide protest movement over learning conditions in Lyon
Riot officers tackle protesters in Paris.
asserted
officers → throw → Paris
Left, a masked demonstrator throws a rock at police lines in Lyon
Huge protests at the Place de la Bastille in Paris on Thursday afternoon
asserted
demonstrator → leave → afternoon
France is facing a modern-day insurrection that threatens to run out of control.
asserted
that → face → control
On Tuesday, when the worst unrest took place, the French Interior Ministry said 'urban violence' brought 266,000 protesters on to the streets across the country, with 56,000 in Paris alone.
asserted
violence → take → Paris
Since the school riots began in late September they have engulfed the nation, from Marseilles in the south to Strasbourg in the north east, moving from classrooms into universities and now workplaces.
asserted
they → begin → universities
This week the Ministry of National Education reported that 891 high schools – nearly a quarter of all the lycées in France – have been disrupted or blockaded.
asserted
schools → report → France
The total number of affected schools is thought to be as high as 1,800.
asserted
number → affect → 1,800
Additionally, up to 500 were closed by authorities.
asserted
500 → close → authorities
Nearly 800 gendarmes and 85 teachers have been injured, 6,500 protesters arrested and, as of last night, 18 investigations are under way into excessive use of force by police.
On Wednesday, interior minister Laurent Nunez ordered police to suspend the use of a new type of stun grenade after a 15-year-old high school pupil had his hand blown off during a protest in Lens, northern France.
These chaotic scenes are unfolding against a febrile political backdrop.
asserted
scenes → injure → backdrop
Emmanuel Macron is clinging to power as a lame-duck, liberal president.
asserted
Macron → cling → president
A presidential election is scheduled for April, which Right-wing populist Marine Le Pen of the National Rally party is predicted to win.
asserted
Pen → schedule → party
Ms Le Pen appears to endorse claims of far-Left agitators infiltrating the recent unrest.
uncertain
Pen → appear → unrest
Although the trigger for the protests was ostensibly overcrowded classrooms, decaying buildings and teacher shortages, she claims that France is witnessing 'organised riots' by far-Left 'professional activists' inspired by her presidential rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the ultra-Left movement La France Insoumise, or 'France Unbowed'.
uncertain
France → decay → movement
Although he has condemned the violence, Mr Mélenchon, 75, thought it appropriate to march with rioters, even accepting a kiss from at least one keffiyeh-clad teenager.
asserted
it → condemn → teenager
After the Daily Mail was told by pupils from the Lycée Balzac, where Mael was shot, of mysterious figures at its student protest, we spoke to a local journalist who has covered ten school riots in Tours, which is run by a socialist and green coalition.
asserted
which → tell → coalition
This week the Ministry of National Education reported that 891 high schools – nearly a quarter of all the lycées in France – have been disrupted or blockaded.
asserted
schools → report → France
Pictured: Protests at the Place de la Bastille in Paris
The total number of affected schools is thought to be as high as 1,800.
asserted
number → picture → 1,800
Additionally, up to 500 were closed by authorities.
asserted
500 → close → authorities
Pictured: Protests at the Place de la Bastille in Paris
This well-informed writer told us: 'Different groups are turning up.
asserted
groups → picture → us
There are arsonists who deliberately start fires and anarchists who provoke chaos, even throwing bottles of acid.
asserted
who → be → acid
They all come under what France loosely calls 'the black block'.
asserted
France → come → what
They are ultra-Leftists who move from riot to riot, dress entirely in dark clothing, cover their faces, and march at the front, antagonising the police.
asserted
who → move → police
We have delved further into the 'black block' and found it has links to Révolution Permanente (RP), a four-year-old Trotskyist party established to 'overthrow the French bourgeois state'.
asserted
it → delve → state
Its spokespeople include a lawyer who is advising injured student protesters, and it boasts a thriving youth wing, Le Poing Levé, or as 'The Raised Fist' – a symbol of Leftist solidarity.
asserted
it → include → solidarity
Political researchers in London and Paris told the Daily Mail this week: 'There is now substantial publicly available evidence that organisations of the French revolutionary Left are actively trying to extend, organise and radicalise the current lycée protest, connecting it with universities and workers before turning it into a broader political and industrial movement.'
asserted
organisations → tell → movement
…and 51 more, not listed.
The Aporia
