French President Emmanuel Macron believes the students waging three weeks of protests that have closed many schools have “legitimate” grievances but are also being “exploited” by political forces, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The leader, in his final six months in office, has asked the government to provide “concrete responses” to the unrest among high school pupils within weeks, spokeswoman Maud Bregeon told reporters.
She spoke following Macron’s weekly meeting with his cabinet, a day after nationwide solidarity demonstrations showed significant support for the students.
The interior ministry said 161,500 people turned out for Tuesday’s demonstrations held in Paris and other cities. Unions organising the rallies put the figure at 480,000.
Some violent scenes erupted on the sidelines of marches in Paris and Lyon, with police firing tear gas in response.
In his cabinet meeting, Macron “stressed that young people have legitimate concerns, but said these are being exploited for political purposes and turned into urban violence,” Bregeon said.
With French presidential elections due in April and May next year, some opposition parties have seized upon the demonstrations.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the presidential candidate for the far-left France Unbowed party, participated in one of the Paris protests.
The far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen, leading opinion polls, has voiced support for police deployed to the demonstrations and blamed students for violent episodes.
– Alleged police brutality –
Students, unions, rights groups and parents have accused the police of brutality against the students, with some of the young protesters maimed.
The family of one 15-year-old high school student who lost his hand when a police stun grenade exploded said Wednesday they had started legal action to demand an “impartial” investigation.
One of the family’s lawyers, Bertrand Wattez, said the boy, Evan, denied the police account, relayed by prosecutors, that he had tried to pick up the grenade when it went off on October 5. He also denied taking part in the student protests in his city of Lens.
The lawyer said that Evan not only lost his left hand as a result of the blast but also several fingers on his right hand.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Wednesday that 248 students had been injured during the protests, “most often in cases of urban violence.”
A total of 937 police officers had also been injured, as had 149 members of teaching staff, Lecornu told a parliamentary question session.
The premier alleged that the student movement had been “instrumentalised by the allies of France Unbowed… for electoral reasons”.
– 8,000 arrests –
The justice ministry said that nearly 8,000 people had been arrested since the protests started in late September.
It said a total of 7,950 people were apprehended — 85 per cent of them minors — with charges laid against 2,735 of them. Twenty-six people were remanded in custody.
In another violent incident, a 16-year-old student was blinded in an eye during a September 30 protest outside his school in the western city of Tours. His family blamed the police.
Late Tuesday, the prosecutor for Tours said the officer involved had been charged with aggravated battery.
Police have opened internal investigations into 36 allegations of officer violence against demonstrators, according to the interior ministry.
Late Wednesday, the police union Alliance said it had lodged a lawsuit against the government for “putting lives in danger” over what it termed “contradictory orders” given to officers deployed in the protests.
A statement said that officers felt “betrayed” by their political leaders because of their “unclear instructions” and what they said were public expressions of “empathy towards the rioters.”
French authorities have expressed hope that the student protest movement would ease in the coming days because of two weeks of school holidays that start on the weekend.
The government said 2,000 of 3,000 substitute teachers promised for 114 of the country’s worst-affected schools had already taken up their positions.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray told parliament that a third of France’s 3,700 lycees — high schools for students aged 15 to 18 — had been strongly impacted by the protests, with another third impacted to a limited degree.
AFP