End-of year university exams will be held in France despite students blockading some campuses, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Thursday as young people joined a wave of demonstrations against proposed economic reforms.

Students opposing a reform that allows the most pressed universities to select students on merit have blocked three universities and disrupted eight others, the government said.

In the rue de Tolbiac branch of Paris 1 university, students have been blocking access for several days, piling up tables and chairs to control who is coming in, setting up communal kitchen and dormitories and organizing non-curriculum classes.

The lottery system would be scrapped under reforms with the most in-demand universities allowed to choose students on merit.

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