MONTREAL - After a week that saw students hospitalized after confrontations with police, students took back to the streets of Montreal on Tuesday to protest the Charest government's plan to nearly double tuition by 2017.
Organized by the Coalition large de l'Association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante, several hundred students met at Square Victoria at around 1:00 p.m and marched through downtown.
The students did not share the march's serpentine route with authorities before the demonstration.
After Francis Grenier, 22, suffered a serious wound to the eye during a protest in front of Loto Quebec last Wednesday, the Montreal police called for more cooperation from students to avoid incidents in the future. Grenier was allegedly wounded by a police stun grenade on March 7.
During a demonstration near UQAM on Monday night, three of the windows of La Presse's office in Old Montreal were smashed. The editor-in-chief of La Presse, Andre Pratte, called the incident "unfortunate." The editor has supported the government's position on tuition.
"We are starting to see signs from the government, even from people that aren't our allies like the Montreal police, that the pressure is building up. The police are putting pressure on the government because they feel that our movement is starting to disturb the peace of the city," said Frank Levesque-Nicol, an organizer for the march.
By 3:45 p.m. the march had made its way to Concordia, where the university's undergraduate students voted last Thursday to join the 160,000 students who have voted to walk out of classes across Quebec.
The Charest Liberals are planning to increase tuition by $325 a year for the next five years. With tuition and university fees expected to average nearly $4,800 annually by 2017, the province is expected to lose its status as one of Canada's cheapest places to study.
Up to 200,000 students are expected to march on March 22, two days after Finance Minister Raymond Bachand tables the province's next budget.
With the Montreal police reporting that some paint and firecrackers were thrown at them, at least one protester was arrested near the end of the evening.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that tuition would increase to $9,000 annually.