Police in Belgium have detained more than 100 people after demonstrations in the city of Liege against the rising cost of education turned violent in some places, as similar protests grip neighbouring France. Students rallied in the city on Tuesday and Wednesday against overcrowded classrooms and difficulty accessing resources in Belgium’s French-language education system. Eighty people were detained during the protests, and 27 were formally arrested, the Belga news agency reported, citing the Liege police.
Some protesters damaged property and set fires, the police added. Attendees insisted that shortcomings in the education system gave them no choice but to take to the streets. Authorities were attempting to defuse tensions and head off further unrest.
In Belgium, education is managed independently by the country’s linguistic communities, and there is no single national curriculum. Instead, the Flemish population regulates education in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Flanders region while French-speaking Wallonia oversees its own curriculum. Parents can decide where to enrol children in the bilingual capital Brussels.
The protests in Liege follow sporadic violent demonstrations over the summer in Brussels against an increase in tuition fees for students in French-speaking areas from 835 euros ($930) to 1,194 euros ($1,340). Belgium’s education budget has been under pressure as a result of a cost-of-living crisis and the spiralling cost of energy, issues that are helping fuel student protests in France as well.
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