A huge explosion at a chemistry college in France today killed at least one person, injured a large but unspecified number of others, and started a major fire, The Times of London is reporting. Initial reports indicate that the blast, at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie in Mulhouse, in eastern France near the German border, is neither the result of a terrorist act nor connected with national protests against a new law on employment.

Those protests have sent thousands of students into the streets across France in recent weeks (The Chronicle, March 17). More than 23,000 university students marched on Thursday in central Paris, according to police figures cited by the Bloomberg news service. A student union said the number was more than double the official figure.

Reuters is reporting that the dead man was a professor and that the cause of the explosion remains unknown.