▲ French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu delivers a national address
To appease the anger of high school students who have poured into the streets demanding improvements to their educational environment, the French government has promised to unveil a first set of countermeasures by the end of this month.
According to French media outlets such as the daily Le Monde, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu expressed sympathy for the students' grievances in a national address on the evening of the 7th local time, stating that the government would listen to their demands and formulate concrete improvement plans.
Lecornu said, "The anger of our youth did not arise out of nowhere. No one can remain indifferent to the anxiety they are expressing," adding, "The responsibility of the government and political forces is to restore trust, and that begins with listening to their voices."
Lecornu went on to say that over the remaining eight months until the presidential election, the government will review five tasks to "meet the expectations of high school students."
These are demands that the protesting students have raised: replacing absent teachers, improving school facilities, adjusting school schedules, upgrading Parcoursup (the university admissions support platform), and creating a platform for students to voice their opinions.
Lecornu also stated that more than 40,000 submissions have already been made to the feedback platform opened by the Minister of Education on the 5th, and that the government will review these inputs to announce its first measures by the end of the month.
Regarding demands for increased government investment in education, Lecornu emphasized, "In next year's budget bill, the national education budget is set at 64.0 billion euros (approximately 95.8 trillion won), an additional increase of 1.2 billion euros (1.8 trillion won) compared to last year," noting that "it is one of the few ministries where the budget has actually increased."
Addressing criticism from the left-wing camp that police and public authorities are using excessive and violent force to crack down on student protests, Lecornu stressed, "The police have never received instructions to confront high school students."
He added, "Their mission includes protecting property, but above all, protecting people, and to this end, they often have no choice but to take proportionate measures in difficult situations."
However, it remains uncertain whether today's address will calm the situation.
Manuel Bompard, a lawmaker from the critical left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), criticized the speech, saying, "They failed to announce a single concrete measure to respond to the students' anger," while Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Greens, evaluated the address as a "strategy to buy time."
Representatives of various high school student organizations are also demanding a meeting with the Prime Minister to extract concrete countermeasures from the government.
The protests, which began on September 21 at a high school in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, spread to the Paris region before expanding nationwide on September 29.
On the 6th, 266,000 people according to police estimates and 450,000 according to organizers poured into the streets across France, and large-scale rallies are again forecasted for the 8th.
The protests, which initially started with high school students, are gradually being joined by university students, parents, teachers, civil servant unions, and farmers' organizations.
It appears that grievances accumulated over time regarding fiscal austerity and the cost-of-living burden caused by soaring oil prices are erupting all at once, catalyzed by the student protests.
Posts have also appeared online urging collective action on the 17th in response to rising oil prices, in a form similar to the past "Yellow Vest" protests.
To prevent the spread of the protests, the French government also announced energy countermeasures alongside its education plans.
In his address, Prime Minister Lecornu announced that the government would supply 10 million barrels of diesel from strategic reserves to French distributors.
He explained, "This diesel was purchased before oil prices skyrocketed and will be supplied at cost, which will lower gas station retail prices by about 12 to 18 centimes (0.12 to 0.18 euros) per liter."
Lecornu further stated, "Electricity rates must not rise this winter," and asked the power company to "maximize production capacity to the extent that safety requirements are met."
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.