The French President, Emmanuel Macron, asked the government to provide concrete answers to the demands of students whose protests have affected the functioning of educational institutions. He also condemned the political instrumentalization of demonstrations.
© Bastien Ohier / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images
14/10/2026
by
Lusa
O French President Emmanuel Macron today urged the Government to present in the coming weeks “concrete responses” to the “legitimate claims” of students whose protests have prevented the functioning of educational institutions.
Macron also condemned the fact that these demonstrations were “politically exploited and transformed into urban violence”.
The French Head of State “asked the Government to give concrete and clear answers, to work on them and present them in the coming weeks,” said the spokesman for the Government, Maud Bregeon, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers.
Bregeon, who is also Minister of Energy, indicated that Macron warned that the concerns of young people are being politically exploited, in a veiled allusion to the radical left-wing party France Unsubmissive (LFI) .
“The President of the Republic insisted that young people are legitimately expressing their concerns, but that they are being politically exploited and transformed into urban violence, with unacceptable scenes from all points of view, including yesterday (Tuesday), in the various concentration sites,” he said.
The demonstrations of Tuesday mobilized in France between 161,500 people, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and 480,000, according to student unions, which require an additional investment of 10,000 million euros in the educational sector in the State Budget for 2027.
The government spokesperson also stressed the need expressed by the French President to protect teachers and condemn attacks on security forces and education professionals.
“ It is necessary to distinguish, on the one hand, the legitimate claims and, on the other, the unacceptable violence, which is instrumentalized and transformed into urban violence, with clashes with the security forces and the professionals of National Education – this must be condemned unanimously”, he insisted.
The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, also today reiterated that the student movement has been “exploited” by the LFI party for “election purposes”.
“ They sparked the flames, then pretend to condemn the violence, and now they even forgot to do so. This hypocrisy harms France”, he said, in the executive's inspection session in the Senate.
According to Bregeon, the priorities of the French President are improving school facilities, reviewing schedules and strengthening academic guidance.
According to Macron, the government should also continue efforts to address the lack of teachers.
The Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray, predicted the placement in the coming days of 3,000 teachers in replacement positions, 2,000 of whom have already been contracted, according to data presented at the Council of Ministers meeting.
Geffray, who will meet with student associations on Thursday, said today to the television station BFMTV that about 4% of the country’s 3,700 secondary schools are still closed, at a time when the government expects school holidays, which start on Saturday and extend until the beginning of November, to help reduce mobilization.
However, the most active student leaders maintain that they will not yield and maintain the demand for investments of EUR 10 billion in the education sector.
To this end, they call for the maintenance of protests for the lack of educational resources and for the accession, next Saturday, to new mobilizations, called on social networks, against the cost of life, in which the return of the “yellow vests” is promoted, which led the protests of 2018 throughout the country.
Around 7,950 people (6,773 of whom were minors) were arrested since the beginning of the student protest movement at the end of September, and 26 of them were in protective custody, according to an assessment by the Ministry of Justice.
To date 148 workers in the education system have been injured in the protests, Lecornu indicated, as well as 937 police officers and 248 students, some of whom are very serious.
The Police Union Alliance announced that it will file a complaint against the State for endangering the lives of the agents, denouncing “contradictory orders” received by the police, who were “exposed to violence and abandoned to the mercy of public hostility” in these protests.