An educational union filed a complaint against the arrest and interrogation of 153 students from the Saint Exupery school in Mont-Lagoli, France's northern Ile-de-France region, describing the incident as "the practice of violence against minors by representatives of public authorities."

The complaint also spoke of "brutal forms of torture" inflicted on minors, as well as images of the arrest in which the faces were clearly shown, which was illegal, the French newspaper Liberation reported on Saturday.

Hundreds of French citizens have joined up with high school students and posted pictures showing them in the same state of arrest holding their hands up on their knees.

The arrest of the school's students was widely covered by the French media, which described what happened in the shocking incident.

The video was posted Friday on social networking sites, where students appeared on their knees and hands behind their heads, as part of the procedure of detection of police dealing with them in demonstrations on Thursday to demand an amendment to the system of admission to universities.

The "police violence watchdog" account was the first to publish the footage on Twitter, in which students also appeared surrounded by a number of police equipped with riot gear such as helmets, batons and shields, but no identity was identified.

Students are between 12 and 21 years old, and most have been released after their arrest.

D'autres images de l'interpellation de dizaines de lycéens, aujourd'hui à Mantes-la-Jolie. pic.twitter.com/ghv8K91e7l

- Violences Policières (@Obs_Violences) December 6, 2018

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Authorities said the police had to intervene after the students caused confusion in the secondary school, and some of them carried white and muscular weapons.

The authorities acknowledged that the manner in which security was handled was not optimal in dealing with students, but confirmed that what happened was not against the law.

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanque was quick to confirm that he was shocked when he saw the pictures of the students' arrest, but he also mentioned the general context of the events and the reactions of the huge demonstrations organized by the "yellow jackets" in France.

Wide condemnations
According to the French newspaper Le Journalite, the founder of the movement "Generations" prominent leftist leader Bonoa Hamon, what happened with the students, and said, "It is not the Republic, I insulted the French youth."

Other educational unions and federal parents of students called on the minister of education to listen to students and consider their demands, Lomanite said.

The parliamentary group of the "noble France" party also condemned what happened to the students, while human rights defenders demanded an investigation into the incident and discussed the circumstances with which they had investigated the students.

Lomanite quoted the head of the Sociétique Racism Association Dominique Subou as saying that secondary school students may have misconceptions about immigrant residents of the suburbs, as students in the Mant La Jollie region are classified as "suburban youth."