Following an unsuccessful meeting with France's education minister on Thursday, protesting high school pupils across the country say they will not let up the pressure on the government. The Yellow Vests movement has called on the students to join them at a nationwide demonstration on Saturday over working conditions and the cost of living.
Issued on: Modified:
High school union representatives said they were disappointed with the lack of response after their meeting with French Education Minister Édouard Geffray on Thursday evening – the third such meeting since the school protest movement began in mid-September.
"We walked out of the meeting because we weren't being heard; we’ve been told there will be another meeting on Monday, but we will not be attending," Marius Mesnil, of the Union syndicale lycéenne (USL, High School Student Union), told reporters.
The USL announced that it now intends to engage directly with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s office, rather than with the Ministry of Education.
The union Les Lycéens! (High School Students) has taken a similar stance and, alongside the USL, has once again called on pupils to join in protests alongside other dissatisfied groups.
Why are French high school pupils protesting?
Student organisations had hoped for concrete announcements regarding the issues of school infrastructure, the Parcoursup higher education admissions system and class schedules – all of which lie at the heart of their demonstrations.
According to Geffray: "A significant step has been taken toward addressing their demands."
On Thursday, he confirmed that "2,000 substitute teachers have been assigned since Friday, out of the 3,000 promised."
Geffray also said that the changes to be made to the Parcoursup platform at the end of October will apply to current final-year high school students.
France promises more teachers and student representation but protests continue
Anger 'aligned'
Authorities say they are expecting between 70,000 and 140,000 people to demonstrate across France on Saturday.
Sophie Binet, leader of the CGT union – one of the country's oldest and largest – said the day of action "shows the scale of the anger" in French society.
The "common thread" running through the demands of all those planning to protest on Saturday is the argument that "the government must take the money from where it actually is – from the pockets of billionaires... and the largest corporations," Binet said.
She added that this stance "aligns" with that of the school students protesting, and disputed the government’s claim that the high school protest movement is "losing steam".
"We must grasp the gravity of the situation: today, buying tomatoes or courgettes or filling up a car with petrol has become a luxury. There are millions of workers who... can no longer make ends meet," Binet told the France Inter radio station on Friday.
She said that to address this situation, Lecornu must "fundamentally overhaul" the draft budget and choose "to invest in the future by funding our education and higher education systems".
The Yellow Vests (gilets jaunes) movement has announced around a thousand actions planned for Saturday across France, and have called for student protesters to join forces with them.
The popular movement began over fuel hikes in 2018 – and was named for the reflective safety jackets drivers are required to keep in their vehicles in France – and later widened to protests against the rising cost of living and general discontent with President Emmanuel Macron's policies.
Organisers of the climate marches held on 26 September, the Confédération Paysanne (a farmers' union), the inter-union coalition for ride-hailing (VTC) drivers, and the trade union Solidaires also said they would join in.
Weapons authorised
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on Friday that the use of "intermediate weapons" could be authorised during Saturday's protests, in the event of "extremely serious urban violence".
The use of stun grenades had been suspended "in the context of the high school student movement" after a 15-year-old protester had his hand blown off in Lens, northern France.
Teenager loses hand picking up grenade in France school protests
"The instructions I have issued are very clear: police officers and gendarmes must be able to use all the weapons at their disposal," Nuñez added, asserting that stun grenades are never "used for crowd control at a demonstration when things are going smoothly".
He indicated that some 250 demonstrations and 80 marches are set to be authorised, amongst them 40 smaller events such as blockades.
Lecornu earlier this week condemned what he called the transformation of the high school student movement into "a movement of urban violence" – adding that this was "an insult to the high school students themselves".
(with newswires)