The student revolt in France does not subside. An investigation has been opened in France following the spread on social media of a video showing a Police Nationale off-road vehicle hurtling at high speed towards protesters in Dunkirk.
Clashes and arrests yesterday again across the country. Almost half a million people in the streets. Macron summons the government. Classes in high schools suspended until Friday. Trump attacks: "Blame Islam and out-of-control mass immigration." German President Steinmeier's visit to France today.
Several representatives of student organizations have asked to be received by French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, complaining about the lack of "concrete measures" announced so far by the Ministers of Education and University. "We have proposals accompanied by figures that we intend to present; that is why we are asking for a meeting with Lecornu as early as next week," Ryad Rani, president of the Union syndicale Lyce'enne (USL), told the press at the end of a meeting with other representatives of various organizations by University Minister Philippe Baptiste. A new day of mobilization of high school students is scheduled for tomorrow, aimed in particular at asking for more resources.
Italian students are also protagonists of the student protests in Paris. This was announced by the Network of Secondary Students who will be on the streets of Paris until tomorrow to take part in the demonstrations. The presence of the Lazio student union aims to reaffirm the need for international convergence in the face of attacks on the right to education, the policies of defunding public schools and the repression of youth dissent. "The demands of the French students are ours" declares Simone Montori, Regional Coordinator of the Middle School Students Network of Lazio. "In Rome as in Paris we face governments that respond to young people with cuts and precariousness. Today is a fundamental stage in the journey that will see us back on the streets on 17 October in Rome and on the occasion of the student strike on 20 November.
A disciplinary investigation was opened in France following the spread on social networks of a video showing a Police Nationale off-road vehicle hurtling at high speed towards demonstrators in Dunkirk, in the north of the country, as part of student demonstrations: this was announced by the Minister of the Interior himself, Laurent Nunez. "A disciplinary investigation is underway and warnings have been issued; consider what happened as an exceptional fact", declared the minister, assuring that "the prefect has taken the situation into his own hands". The scene, which goes viral on social media, shows the police vehicle accelerating in the direction of the demonstrators on the corner of rue du Fort-Louis, in the lower town of Dunkerque, a few hundred meters from a private school, the Vauban. From the images, it seems that the off-road vehicle is aiming at high speed at the students, who begin to run away in all directions. What was seen was ''shocking'', the vice-president of the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme (LDH) Emmanuelle Jourdan-Chartier, announced on France 3 that as an association "we are collecting all the information and testimonies to address the special rapporteurs of the United Nations". While messages of denunciation and indignation are multiplying on social media.
The French Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, during a hearing at the Commission for Constitutional Affairs of the National Assembly regarding the protest movement of high school students, spoke of a "rather unprecedented" movement, in particular for "the number of schools involved", for "the participants, more numerous than usual" and because "it quickly degenerated into serious episodes of violence". Nuñez also believes it is "excessive to talk about police repression", after the numerous images of clashes between the police and young people in recent days. "This is the first truth to be re-established: there is no intervention when students demonstrate peacefully", assures the minister.
Eighty-eight school staff members have been injured since the start of the student mobilization in France, "just under half of whom are principals or vice-principals". And 24 schools were damaged to the point that, after having been ''set on fire or looted'', they cannot reopen immediately, depriving ''almost 30 thousand students of the possibility of attending lessons in person''. Thus the French Minister of Education Edouard Geffray outlined, while reporting to the National Assembly, the picture of the effects of the revolt of high school students. Speaking of the injured school employees, the minister specified that "in many cases, they were deliberately targeted. We had never seen anything like this" before. In addition to the damage to schools, the closure of which will cause "an enormous disadvantage" for scholastic education, the minister reported that hundreds of commercial establishments have been affected by "very serious damage", currently estimated at several tens of millions of euros. Between 20 and 30 million euros, underlines Bfmtv.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will speak this evening with a speech from Matignon on the "situation in high schools, fuel prices, the agricultural crisis and the financial situation of the country". The prime minister's offices announced it. In the aftermath of a massive street mobilization, the government is trying to calm the protest of high school students, while a new day of demonstrations has been announced for tomorrow. Last night President Emmanuel Macron took stock of the situation with several ministers, including Sébastien Lecornu, Laurent Nuñez and Édouard Geffray, to try to find a way out of the crisis.
Schools have nothing to do with it: "What is happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass immigration. It is Islam that wants to take over a once great country." Donald Trump is coming straight into Paris and the student protests that are shaking the streets across France. And the frontal attack is only the latest in a long series of attacks against Europe, accused on several occasions of renouncing its fundamental values, those shared with the United States, and of encouraging uncontrolled immigration. A position that goes hand in hand with the increasingly frequent praise that the tycoon instead addresses to those far-right parties that are making progress in various countries in Europe, starting with the AfD in Germany. An attitude that Trump exploits for internal use and consumption, in view of the midterms, but also to exercise his influence overseas, in view of the elections that will affect much of Europe in the coming months. It has been clear for some time that relations between Trump and the Old Continent are not the best. In the latest version of the National Security Strategy, the White House has put in black and white that if Europe does not change it risks the "real prospect of seeing its civilization erased". From NATO to Ukraine via tariffs, there are therefore many fronts of tension.
