Protesting students block Paris high schools in anger over expulsion of immigrant families

Leonarda 15, left, and Maria Dibrani 17, expelled from France last week, talk on their mobile phones in a shelter house in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, Wednesday, Oct 16, 2013. France's government, trying to save face amid widespread outrage, said Wednesday that it is investigating the treatment of a 15-year-old girl of the Dibrani family who was detained by police in front of her fellow students so she and her family could be expelled to Kosovo as illegal immigrants. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu) (The Associated Press)

Maria Dibrani 17, expelled from France last week, talks on her mobile phone in a shelter house in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo Wednesday, Oct 16, 2013. France's government, trying to save face amid widespread outrage, said Wednesday that it is investigating the treatment of a 15-year-old girl of the Dibrani family who was detained by police in front of her fellow students so she and her family could be expelled to Kosovo as illegal immigrants. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu) (The Associated Press)

Hundreds of teenagers are erecting barricades outside their schools and marching through Paris to protest police expulsions of immigrant families.

Anger erupted this week over the treatment of a 15-year-old Kosovar girl, detained in front of classmates on a field trip. The government says her family had been denied asylum and was no longer allowed to stay in France.

Such expulsions occur regularly around France as the government tries to limit illegal immigration. The students, saying the expulsions are unfair to children, hope to pressure the Socialist-led government into allowing a recently expelled Armenian boy and the Kosovar girl to return to France.

At one high school in Paris, students piled green garbage cans in front of the entrance and hung a banner saying "Education in Danger."