Protests demanding increased education spending sweep France... 260,000 gather, police respond with tear gas

[Financial News]  Solidarity protests by high school students against cuts to France’s education budget drew 260,000 participants nationwide, plunging the country into severe turmoil. In major cities, including Paris, police moved to suppress the protests with tear gas and rubber bullets, while political pressure on Emmanuel Macron’s government continued to mount.
On the 6th (local time), foreign media including the Associated Press reported that protests to improve educational conditions, which began at a high school outside Paris in mid-September, had spread rapidly to major cities across the country, including Marseille, Strasbourg and Lille. At least 266,000 people took part nationwide, including 56,000 in Paris. 
As the protests intensified, clashes broke out between police and demonstrators in some areas, including central Paris. Authorities arrested about 500 people that day alone, and the total number arrested over the past two weeks exceeded 6,500. Many of those arrested were found to be minors.
Controversy over the police’s heavy-handed crackdown is also intensifying. On the 5th, a 15-year-old boy suffered a serious injury when his hand was severed after he was struck by a special flashbang grenade thrown by police, among a series of injuries caused by excessive force. In response, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez defended the police, saying, “The police response was appropriate in most cases, and intervention was unavoidable as the protests turned into riots.” He added that 715 police officers were also injured during the crackdown.
Students are calling for improvements to educational conditions, citing rundown classrooms, shortages of basic supplies such as desks and chairs, inadequate cooling in summer, a lack of teachers, and excessive class hours that are among the longest in Europe. Their demands have gained broad public support as they have been joined by discontent over rising fuel costs in the wake of the Iran war, a widening wealth gap and cuts to public spending.
According to France’s Ministry of Education, classes were fully or partially suspended at 891 high schools nationwide because of the protests. The government said it would set up an online portal to hear students’ concerns in an effort to quell unrest, but student groups plan to continue protesting on the 8th until concrete budget measures are put in place.
The crisis has become the biggest issue in the next presidential election, as the race to succeed President Macron gathers pace with his term nearing its end. The opposition has strongly condemned the violent police crackdown and come out in support of the students. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said, “We must listen to the students, but extreme violence that threatens schools cannot be tolerated.”
The impact of the student protests has also spread to neighboring Belgium, where solidarity demonstrations were held in Liège, Brussels and elsewhere, with dozens of people arrested, the Associated Press reported.

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