Students and police officers clash in Montreal on Thursday during a protest against tuition increases.
Posted on 05/17/2012 7:54:17 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
MONTREAL—Quebec's government is trying to restore calm as sometimes-violent student demonstrations stretch into their fourth month—disrupting daily commutes and drawing a rare travel advisory from the U.S. consulate.
Students, protesting planned tuition increases by the government of the French-speaking Canadian province, have been staging night marches and boisterous demonstrations since February, but protests have turned more violent. Dozens of students and police have been injured in near-daily melees in and around Montreal, in several cases as striking students try to bar students who want to finish their studies from classrooms.
Late Wednesday, police arrested 122 after students rampaged through downtown streets, smashing bank windows, police said. The rioting followed an all-day emergency cabinet meeting of the Quebec government.
After the meeting, officials proposed legislation that would suspend classes until August to allow for a cooling-off period. The provincial parliament was slated to meet Thursday evening to debate other measures to better protect students who wanted to continue their studies.
Meanwhile, four protesters have been charged with "inciting fear of terrorism" after allegedly detonating smoke bombs this month inside Montreal's subway system. After a last-ditch effort at negotiations this week, the province's education minister, who also served as deputy premier, stepped down.
Increasingly, some protesters have described their fight as not just over tuition increases, but also against what they say is a corrupt capitalist system—a shift that has frustrated the government as it tries to negotiate the tuition-fees dispute.
At a protest march on Tuesday, Matthieu Deutté used a loudspeaker to address a group of around 200 students.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Students and police officers clash in Montreal on Thursday during a protest against tuition increases.
How do they know these people really are students? They have IDs?
Well, we DO know that they are smelly hippies.
They need to start speaking English up in Quebec like the rest of Canada. Because eventually, the United States is going to bring the provinces of Canada into the Union. It's only a matter of time. Oil, forestry, minerals, beer in green bottles and lame-ass singers - we need more of that in the USA. So eventually, we will be coming after you guys.
Plus...we need to get to Alaska without having to go through customs. What is up with that?
Gee, when I lived in Wisconsin, mention Quebec and it was all about Bonhomme Carnaval the talking snowman. And curling. And ice fishing. So long ago, eh, bien.
Who knew?...They have strong teacher unions in Canada too...hmm.
I get a kick that these kids seem to not think it through to figure out why costs are skyrocketing....must be bad learning or something.....
They’re just upset because the Habs sucked so bad this season.
YES! That is just wrong. I sell a ton of stuff to Canadians and their customs is worse then Africa. I can send a package to anywhere USA in one or two days. To get to Canada the same package takes two to four weeks.
Great. My daughters French class leaves for Montreal in 5 hours!
I have an idea! How about shutting down the universities indefinitely and making those punks go to work. Perhaps then they will have a better appreciation of where money comes from.
I promise you la belle province du Quebec is being strangled to death by gov’t trough feeders same as here but worse.....it’s the European way. Quebeq has one big bail out and that is selling their hydro power to our NE states.
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