Madrid: President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday slammed politicians he accused of “legitimising violence” in French school protests that have seen clashes with police and hundreds of arrests, in comments targeting the far left.
Students at French lycees, attended by students aged 15 to 18 for their final years of secondary education, have since last week staged blockades outside schools demanding better conditions.
The protests have spread across the country from the Ile-de-France region that includes Paris. On Tuesday, teenagers set fire to rubbish bins and threw projectiles at police who responded with batons and tear gas.
More than 400 people, mostly minors, were arrested following violence, while 10 students and staff were wounded, according to officials.
Macron said: “I hear and I understand the anxiety, the anger” of the students, whose grievances include timetables, class sizes, a shortage of teachers and overheated classrooms during this year’s heatwaves.
“However, none of these debates, none of these fears justifies violence. And on no account… can political leaders legitimise violence,” the centrist leader told a news conference in Madrid during a state visit to Spain.
Such politicians “are there because there is a democratic mandate, because they were elected peacefully, within an organised framework, and they are not there to whip up fears and drive people to do the worst”, Macron said.
Macron’s Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Monday accused the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party of encouraging the protests.
But LFI’s candidate for the 2027 presidential election, Jean-Luc Melenchon, said on Wednesday that his party “called for non-violent methods of struggle”.
“The government should stop trying to make the situation worse and respond to the demands instead of waging a partisan political battle,” Melenchon wrote on X.
