500 detained as student-led protests spread across France

More than a quarter of a million people took to the streets across France this week in a wave of student-led protests over underfunded schools, teacher shortages, and deteriorating classrooms. The unrest has led to violent clashes with police, over six thousand arrests, and allegations of excessive police force. It comes amidst growing anger over the cost of living in France, and just six months before a presidential election in which Marine Le Pen's National Rally is leading the polls. Well, joining us now in studio is Eliane Karwa, who's France's Junior Minister for Foreign Affairs, and who's in Dublin for a meeting of EU development ministers. And Eliane, thank you so much for coming into us this morning.

Thank you for having me.

Um, we might start with those student protests over underfunded schools, and there have been numerous allegations at this point of excessive police force. There's some teenagers having suffered life-changing inju- uh, injuries. One, one lost a, an, a hand, another reportedly lost an eye, and we've seen Amnesty International expressing serious concern about the policing. Does the government accept that there was excessive police force in, in some of these protests?

So the pol- the police is investiga- d- I'm sorry. The government is investigating, um, all the actions and the claims, but at this stage, um, there is a really clear instruction to use only proportionate, um, measures, uh, when it comes to, um, to, you know, preserving order in France. Now, I've seen images, and I totally agree that they are both, um, disturbing and heartbreaking, and it goes both ways. I mean, the amount of violence and schools burning sometimes and so forth. Uh, but the, the instruction from the government is really to bring back peace and to respond to the demands of the kids, in particular when they're legitimate, because there's, there's a mass of demands.

Mm.

But now we have a series of, um, really clear requests and concerns from the high school students that have been expressed through a platform that the government put in place, and the situation is calming. I mean, there are still demonstrations, but the idea is to come back to a climate where discussions can take place.

Because the student protests are only one part of the overall unrest, isn't, isn't that right? Um, there's, uh, also a lot of cost of living protests like we've seen here in Ireland, uh, fuel prices at the heart of it, again, like we've seen here in Ireland. Um, and calls for another protest by the Gilets Jaunes, or the Yellow Vests, uh, who, as, uh, many people reme- will remember, created a big political crisis for President Macron in 2008. What do you think can be done to assuage those protests this time?

I think the main concern is to avoid a sort of, like, generalization of protests and concerns that are not, that do not lead to dialogue or to solutions. Acknowledging that, uh, there is concern amongst the French, given the international situation, given the price of energy, um, given the current situation that we're all facing, actually. I mean, the world has never faced this many wars and crisis since the end of World War II, is something bringing concrete