Daily Mail

“Riot police came under a hail of firecrackers, smoke bombs and bags of artificial blood on the boulevards where the beautiful people usually attract all the attention.”

Furious medical students took to the streets of Cannes yesterday, bringing chaos to the film festival.

Riot police came under a hail of firecrackers, smoke bombs and bags of artificial blood on the boulevards where the beautiful people usually attract all the attention.

Chanting Medics

The white-coated students burned tyres in the streets and dumped earth in the middle of one of the town’s busiest junctions. Fire engines were met with a wall of chanting medics until the police, armed with batons, rifles and gas grenades, charged a way through. They were drenched in turn as students grabbed a hose from firemen and turned the water on them.

The demonstrators descended on the new Palais where the festival films are being shown and blockaded the main entrance – in the process smashing two large doors and daubing slogans on the building.

About 50 managed to push right into the festival hall where they threw smoke bombs and thunder flashes.

Playing by the rules

Two policemen and a French Journalist had acid thrown in their faces during the demo. The protestors are enraged by reforms in the health service, including changes In the examination system for doctors, introduced without negotiation by the Mitterrand government.

The demo was one of several by angry students in France yesterday. In Paris, 3,000 invaded the courtyard of the Sorbonne University and the headquarters of French television. Clashes also broke out between students and police at Marseilles, Lyons and Toulouse.