French PM tries to quell protests with aid and good words while announcing cuts

The situation in France is increasingly tense. Protests by high school and university students are multiplying in the streets and autumn could also mean the return of the yellow vests, climate demonstrations and a tense debate over the budget, which foresees some 50 billion euros in cuts and could end up causing the fall of the Government. The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, aware of the seriousness of the moment and the fragility of his Executive just seven months before a crucial presidential election, appeared on Wednesday afternoon to announce sectoral aid and empathize with the general unrest.

The prime minister took out his checkbook and promised a drop in the price of diesel between 12 and 18 cents. He also announced that France will draw on a stock of 10 million barrels of oil and that starting in January an energy check will be established for the most disadvantaged families. The head of Government remembered everyone: students, farmers (he announced an “emergency plan”), transporters... “We find ourselves in a difficult situation, but that does not mean that we do not have answers,” he declared at the beginning, claiming to understand “the fatigue of those who have the feeling that, as soon as they have overcome one difficulty, another appears.”

The problem is that autumn, beyond this political empathy, will tighten and show the seams of the promises. There will be protests in the streets throughout the month of October, just when Parliament will have to approve a budget that passes the scissors in almost all basic items.

The Government's objective is to reduce the public deficit to 5%. Despite the measures already taken, the deficit is expected to reach 5.5%. "Our country is aging and our pension system is increasing mechanically. The budget we propose contemplates an adjustment of 54 billion euros. Making this decision by distributing the burden equitably will allow us to make forecasts for the country as a whole," said Lecornu. “I appeal to everyone's patriotism,” he continued in a serious tone and addressing the political parties that, predictably, will prefer to overthrow the government than associate with it a few months before the presidential elections (the first round will be held on April 18).

Lecornu also assured in his speech that he understood the students. But at the same time, he defended the police and denied any instructions to repress students without reason. But the tension is maximum, and the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, announced in the morning that the launching of deafening grenades and gas is temporarily prohibited to avoid this type of incidents that have already ended with 215 students injured, as he himself pointed out when being questioned in the National Assembly.

The student protest continues in the streets although the level of tension has decreased slightly after a day of mobilization and riots. According to provisional figures from the Ministry of Education, 86% of educational centers opened their doors on Wednesday morning. However, classes were totally or partially suspended in 528 institutes, which represents a decrease of 41% compared to Tuesday. Some 30,000 students, according to the minister of the field, will not be able to return to classes in the coming weeks due to the damage caused to their institutes.

On Tuesday, between 266,000 and 450,000 people - high school students, university students, teachers and parents of students - demonstrated in France, according to authorities and organizers. But on Wednesday several centers - faculties and institutes - were still blocked by students, such as the Hélène-Boucher and Voltaire high schools, where garbage containers were once again placed to block the entrances. The Sciences Po Paris university, a symbol of French educational excellence, was also blocked by a barricade guarded by a heavy police force.

At the same time, the controversy over the excessive use of violence by the police continues to gain strength. During the protests, a student in the city of Lens lost a hand when a grenade exploded and a 14-year-old boy suffered a double fracture of his jaw after being hit by a tear gas grenade launcher on Monday in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, in the Val-d'Oise department. The police officer who shot has been arrested.

The Minister of the Interior, who admitted that the movement had taken the forces of order by surprise as it was "unprecedented" and that it had "quickly mutated into violent acts," pointed out that 6,629 people have been arrested and that 761 police or gendarmes have been injured, according to the balance since the beginning of the protests. In addition, 89 members of the teaching staff have been affected. The Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray specified that "slightly less than half of those The injured are directors of centers, that is, management personnel, directors or deputy directors.” “There has been a violent will directed against National Education personnel and we have never seen anything like this, ever,” he said.

The official count also indicates, less emphatically, that the police have injured 215 students, "in the vast majority of cases," the Minister of the Interior specifies, "the injuries were accidental" or were related to "the launching of projectiles or mortars by other protesters." Something that the progressive groups do not fully believe, which insist on eliminating certain methods of police repression. In recent years, the so-called yellow vest protests have already exposed the excessive use of force by the police.

“The abandonment of stun grenades against the movement of secondary school students, announced by the Government, is not enough: we must also ban rubber bullet launchers, LBD [rifles that launch rubber balls],” claimed on Wednesday Olivier Faure, leader of the Socialists and candidate in the primaries in which the party's representative in the presidential elections will be designated.