Police braces for nationwide day of protests across French high schools demanding reforms and more resources

After a weekend-long hiatus, high schoolers in France are expected back at the barricades this coming week in their protest movement that is rattling the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

A key question is whether violence on the margins of the demonstrations will worsen, blurring the lines between protest and rioting, and whether Macron's government will ratchet up the already muscular response by police.

According to the interior minister, officers made more than 5,000 arrests last week, 85% of them minors, in scuffled between students and security forces that left hundreds of people injured.

A test of the movement's endurance and appeal will come Tuesday, when the influential CGT labour union is urging workers to demonstrate, too.

Protests first erupted in the Paris capital region in mid-September.

Teachers and students mobilised against a lack of staff at a lycée, or high school, in Creteil, in the southeastern outskirts of the French capital. From there, class strikes, blockades and demonstrations spread to other Paris suburbs and then nationwide, with protests even in high schools of smaller towns.

Around 400 or 500 schools have had to close because of damage or attacks that targeted staff and are expected to remain closed early into this week, according to the education minister. More than 170 pupils and 78 staff members have suffered injuries, he says.