LIVE - Mobilization of high school students: new blockages expected this Monday before an “Act V” on Tuesday, the government hopes for a lull

The Defender of Rights (DDD), an independent administrative authority responsible in particular for ensuring compliance with ethics by law enforcement, announced on Sunday that it had received 28 individual referrals since the start of the high school movement. “Given the numerous incidents” during the mobilization of high school students, the DDD estimated in a press release “that it is imperative to reconcile security with the protection of the rights and freedoms of people, particularly when it comes to minors”.

The administrative authority, embodied since July by former minister François-Noël Buffet, has “received 28 individual referrals since the start of the mobilizations”, referrals which are still being “examined”, underlined the DDD. “Given the seriousness of the first incident brought to its attention,” the DDD also indicated to Le Figaro that it had decided, on October 1, to take responsibility for the events that occurred in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône (Val-d’Oise), where a 14-year-old boy was seriously injured in the face by a tear gas grenade.

“The first steps necessary to examine the file are currently underway,” he stressed. The Defender of Rights, who has no power of constraint, “will be particularly vigilant about respect and proper application of the rules of ethics” by the police, he added.

The continuation of the blockades in any case worries the more than 10,000 medical students who begin on Monday the tests of the very arduous internship competition, determining for the choice of their specialty. As the competition is national, any disruption in just one of the examination centers spread across the national territory may result in its cancellation in all centers.

A blocking of these exams “would only have an impact on students” and would cause “great distress”, warned Friday on France Info Thibault Patey, president of the ANEMF (National Association of Medical Students), who also “supports” the “claims of student mobilizations”.

Sunday evening, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu made public a count of contributions to the consultation platform launched by the government for high school students. “More than 76,500 high school students have already participated in the national consultation launched on Agora.”

He indicated that the government would table amendments to the draft budget for 2027 which will take up “certain proposals made” on the platform. These contributions will also be “analyzed academy by academy, then establishment by establishment”, to provide “adapted responses”, he promised.

The high school students begin on Monday a new week of their mobilization that began in mid-September with the culmination of an “act V” of the demonstrations on Tuesday, which will be decisive for a movement that the government hopes is in decline.

The executive is all the more hoping for a decline in high school and student mobilization as a day of action launched on social networks, particularly for purchasing power, is to be held on Saturday October 17, reviving the memory of the Yellow Vests.

On Friday, the government announced a “clear deceleration” in blockades and high school gatherings. According to the Ministry of Education, “more than 96% of high schools” were open Friday morning (141 establishments closed out of 700), compared to 157 the day before.

Also read Demonstration of October 17: is the mobilization on social networks comparable to that of the “Yellow Vests”?