French student protests continue as Paris region records 1,260 arrests.

Students continued to blockade high schools and universities in France on Thursday as the government faced renewed pressure to address their demands ahead of a nationwide demonstration scheduled for Saturday, French broadcaster BFMTV reported.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray said students at around 200 high schools remained mobilized nationwide.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the protests no longer resembled a student movement but had become “a movement of urban violence.”

He denounced the “absolutely appalling call for violence” in some areas.

Lecornu said regional councils would be consulted on issues involving school buildings and criticized violent incidents at the end of demonstrations.

Geffray said the government was reviewing the entire university admissions process through Parcoursup, France’s higher education application platform, with measures expected by the end of October.

“The time for decisions is approaching, but for now we are working on it,” he said during a visit to a high school in Gradignan in southwestern France.

Geffray also said the government had assigned two-thirds of the 3,000 substitute teachers it promised to schools.

The number of high schools classified as facing particular difficulties had fallen from 114 last Thursday to 47 on Thursday, he said.

He hoped no high schools would remain in the “red zone” by the time classes resume after the autumn break.

Student representatives are scheduled to meet Geffray again at the Education Ministry at 5.30 pm Thursday (1530GMT).

At a previous meeting on Oct. 8, student organizations Les Lyceens! and the Union syndicale lyceenne called for protests to continue.

The protests also reached HEC Paris, a business school in Jouy-en-Josas, west of Paris, where students demonstrated in support of high school students for the first time since the movement began.

The Lyon prefecture banned a student demonstration scheduled for early Thursday, citing risks of further public disorder, damage to businesses and violence against security forces during previous protests.

Blockades continued at several schools and universities in Paris, Marseille and the Lyon area.

The Paris police prefecture said 1,260 people had been arrested in the Paris metropolitan area since the start of student protests, 86% of them minors.

A total of 286 police officers and gendarmes and 13 education staff members had been injured, the prefecture said in a situation update.

“The violence is recurring and growing in intensity,” it said, adding that 71 members of the internal security forces were injured during demonstrations on Oct. 13.

It said some individuals had pulled up paving stones and thrown them at police officers and gendarmes, and that several officers were taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

Staff at Paul-Eluard High School in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, meanwhile, denounced “violent” police intervention inside the school to arrest a student. They alleged that officers struck staff members who tried to oppose the arrest.