French PM denies police ordered to confront student protesters

MULTIPLE CRISES

In Wednesday’s address, Lecornu also promised to release diesel stocks in a bid to bring down fuel prices, and reiterated an aim to cut the country’s soaring debt to 5 per cent of GDP next year.

The French government is wrestling with multiple crises including the protests and its 2027 budget, as well as a looming election next year to choose Macron’s successor, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen riding high in the polls.

“It took several children being maimed for life for Nunez to give up using grenades against high school students,” said Manuel Bompard, national coordinator of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).

The government has blamed the LFI for stoking tensions around the protests.

While most schools reopened on Wednesday, more than 500 remained at least partially closed with students blocking doors with mounds of trash bins. 

Several lawyers representing teens taken into police custody say they have faced physical violence and insults. 

Ainoha Pascual, a lawyer representing three minors in Paris, said they had been “terrorised”.

“A very large majority arrive in custody injured”, having taken baton blows or being dragged on the ground, she added. 

Prisca Ancion with the Collective for Judicial Action told AFP that every single high schooler arrested reported experiencing “an insult, a slap, having their head held down on the ground, chokeholds.”