Police in Paris have used teargas to disperse protesters attempting to block the removal of migrants from a school that they have been occupying for two weeks.

Protesters had formed a human chain around the Jean-Jaurès high school in the north of the French capital to prevent police entering on Wednesday. Some of the demonstrators chanted “everyone hates the police” and pelted them with objects.

Police entered the school, where tables and chairs were piled up to try to block their entry.

The school was closed for renovation and empty when 150 migrants occupied part of the building last month. They are mainly from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

A policeman and protester come face to face outside the Jean-Jaurès high school in Paris. Photograph: Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images

“This morning the police gassed us and pushed us out of the way. At midnight we built a barrier of tables and chairs, but they moved it all out of the way,” said Emmanuel, a Ghanaian in his 20s who left the school when the police entered.



“It’s better here than being on the street,” he said. “I don’t know where they want to take us.”

Clementine Verschave, from a charity that helps migrants, said: “There are a lot of women among the migrants in the school, including two who are pregnant.”



Eric Coquerel, from the Left party, who was among the demonstrators, said the police had used “unjustified force”.

“This school is empty and has no purpose. These people are better off here than on the street,” he said.

The evacuation of the school was the second time this week that authorities in Paris had taken action against migrants.

On Monday, riot police closed a makeshift camp set up around a metro station and took 1,600 migrants to an accommodation centre.