French exams halted for hundreds:

Europe

Hundreds of French students saw their end-of-term exams suspended Monday as protesters blocked access to two universities, the latest in months of demonstrations against the government’s plans to introduce more selective admission requirements.

Tests were cancelled for some 800 students in the southeastern city of Lyon after about 300 protesters formed a human chain at two sites of the Lyon 2 university, officials said.

In the southern port city of Marseille, meanwhile, police moved in to remove an estimated 60 to 80 students blocking access to the law and economy faculties of the Aix-Marseille University.

Shortly afterwards the protesting students were joined by about 30 rail and dockers’ union activists as they squared off against police.

Officials suspended tests scheduled for roughly 700 students given the risk of “disturbing the public order”.

Elsewhere on Monday, police evacuated protesters at a university in the western city of Rennes, an operation carried out “calmly and without any incidents,” the school’s president Olivier David said.

Exams had already been halted last week after blockades at universities in Arcueil, the Paris suburb where Nanterre university moved the exams following weeks of student occupations, and at Grenoble in the southern French Alps.

Dozens of sites have been fully or partially blocked or occupied since the beginning of the year to protest government plans for stricter entry requirements, a key element of President Emmanuel Macron’s wide-ranging reform drive. (AFP)