French student protests grow before election as PM alleges manipulation

Thousands of students across France have blocked high schools and joined street demonstrations for more than three weeks, with hundreds of new protests announced for Saturday. Workers' unions and prominent figures from the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement are expected to join them.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said this week that student anger was being manipulated as politics intensifies before next year's presidential election. He accused members of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Insoumise (LFI) of instrumentalising the high school movement for electoral advantage, and of encouraging protests before condemning violence. 'This hypocrisy damages France,' he said.

Jérôme Rodrigues, a prominent yellow vest activist, used Instagram to urge people to join Saturday's demonstrations. He said protesters wanted to live decently and not have to choose between eating and driving, adding that anger and an empty fridge have no political party.

Economic pressure

The unrest comes as France faces high government borrowing costs, a divided parliament and six prime ministers in five years. Economist Anne-Laure Delatte told the BBC that France cannot be compared to Greece's 2012 debt crisis or Argentina in 2001, and that markets know it. She likened the situation to the UK in 2023 under Liz Truss, saying a 4% VAT increase would raise the €120bn needed to plug government debt. She also said the European Central Bank would likely intervene if France's finances threatened other European economies.

At one Paris high school in the 3rd district, 17-year-olds Maxime, Madeleine and Elodie told the BBC they were protesting over holes in classroom walls, swelling class sizes and a lack of teachers. They said conditions were worse in the capital's disadvantaged suburbs and that France's promise of égalité did not match reality. They will not be old enough to vote in the presidential election next spring.

Mothers and police violence

Mothers have joined the demonstrations, some wearing placards reading 'Mums in solidarity.' Gwen, 37, said mothers took turns co-ordinating between students and police at their local school lock-in. The protests have been accompanied by accusations of police brutality, denied by the interior ministry, during earlier demonstrations in which hundreds were injured and a 15-year-old boy in Lens lost a hand. The interior minister has since suspended the use of stun grenades by police at high school demonstrations.

Some students and parents invoked France's protest tradition, including May 1968 and Victor Hugo. Lola, 17, said her mother marched in 1968 and now it was her turn, adding she did not see why change should wait for the presidential election. A centrist senator, Anne-Catherine Loisier, told the BBC that students must feel heard and that budgets are limited but funding could be redistributed better. She backed decentralising France and giving more power to regions.

Marine Le Pen, the nationalist anti-immigration favourite, has proposed cutting France's €11bn contribution to the EU budget. French public expenditure is about 57% of GDP, one of the highest among wealthy nations. Delatte said a new president alone would not solve the problem and called for constitutional change, a new system and a new Republic. Loisier said her France is not broken and that power should be returned to the people.

Source: BBC World.