Rats, overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and rising tuition costs drive the unrest spreading across Europe’s borders, while Paris summons Iran’s ambassador over Tehran’s response to crackdown on protests.

LIEGE, Belgium (Dispatches) — Hundreds of students took to the streets of the Belgian city of Liège on Wednesday as a wave of educational unrest that has convulsed France spread across the border, with police reporting 107 arrests in recent days and protesters clashing with officers in scenes that have left a trail of shattered glass, fires and barricaded streets.

The arrests, reported by the Belga news agency, included 80 administrative detentions and 27 judicial arrests, linked to offences including property damage and arson.

Students have protested over Belgium's French-language education system, citing rising education costs, overcrowded classrooms and difficulties accessing study materials. They held signs with slogans including "It's a mess, we are fighting for a right! Not a privilege!" and "I chose education, not the hunger games!!"

The unrest follows June clashes between protesters and police in Brussels over education reforms, including a tuition increase for most students in Belgium's French-speaking Community to €1,194 ($1,280) from €835.

Videos circulating on social media in recent days showed shattered glass, fires and hundreds of mostly young protesters in Liège, while other footage showed police blocking roads. During Wednesday's protest, police were seen checking students for weapons.

Some students told Reuters they were in touch with French counterparts. "We support each other because we're facing pretty much the same issues," 19-year-old student Alfred said.

Amelia Di Salve, also 19, who is studying to become a teacher, said Belgium's student movement began earlier this year and was reignited after students saw the demonstrations in France.

"When we saw nothing was changing without protests, we decided we would start ... France did influence us a little," she said.

The Belgian protests have been marked by a harder edge than those in France. On Monday, an bus shelter was set on fire in Liège's Place de la République française, with 18 police officers lightly injured, 23 administrative arrests and 7 judicial arrests recorded in a single day.

By Tuesday, the total had climbed to 53 arrests in one day alone, with young people damaging property and setting fires around the University of Liège.

Local police have acknowledged that minors as young as 13 were among those detained, with some spending nearly 12 hours in custody. The scale of the detentions has raised questions about the proportionality of the police response.

The Belgian unrest has been fueled in part by the massive demonstrations sweeping France, where up to 450,000 people marched in what French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described as the most violent student demonstrations in decades.

French police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent groups on the fringes of marches in Paris, Strasbourg, Rennes and Toulouse. More than 6,100 arrests have been made in France since the movement began in mid-September.

The French protests have been marked by gruesome injuries blamed on police riot-control weapons, including a 15-year-old boy who lost a hand on Monday in an incident involving a police stun grenade.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced Wednesday that the use of stun grenades would be suspended "for the high school movement" pending an investigation.

The crisis has escalated to the highest levels of the French state. President Emmanuel Macron convened an emergency meeting with Lecornu and key ministers to find a way out of the crisis, as the protests threatened to spiral beyond control.

The French movement began in late September in the Paris suburbs, with students blocking entrances to high schools over dilapidated facilities, teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms.

Within days, it had spread to Lille, Strasbourg, Marseille, Nantes and Rennes, and by this week had drawn in university students as well.

At Sciences Po Paris and Inalco, students erected barricades with rubbish bins and iron bars, blocking building entrances. Protesters threw sandwiches and fruit over police lines to students sitting inside.

The grievances are concrete. Students describe classrooms infested with rats and cockroaches, prefabricated buildings that reach minus 5 degrees Celsius in winter and 40 degrees in summer, and a chronic lack of teachers. French high school students' compulsory classroom hours are among the highest in Europe.

The scale of the state's response has been unprecedented. More than 6,500 people have been arrested since September 28, the overwhelming majority of them minors On Tuesday alone, 488 people were detained.

The government's own figures reveal the toll: 215 students injured, 88 education staff members hurt, and 715 police officers or gendarmes wounded.

Education Minister Édouard Geffray told the National Assembly that 24 high schools had been set on fire or vandalized beyond immediate repair, leaving 30,000 students unable to attend classes in person.

A petition on the National Assembly website demanding a ban on "mutilating weapons" in student protests surpassed 50,000 signatures in two days.

Student organizations have called for a fourth day of national action on Thursday, with marches planned in Paris and other cities. The movement shows no sign of abating — and with Macron's government under mounting pressure, France's crisis of youth and education is deepening by the day.

France summoned Iran’s ambassador Wednesday over what the Foreign Ministry called an Iranian “disinformation campaign” concerning student protests in the country.

Iran has criticized France’s handling of the protests, especially its use of excessive force against demonstrators. Tehran also summoned France’s ambassador Tuesday the violent treatment of protesters.