Student riots engulf France as Le Pen vows fiscal turnaround

Mass student riots are escalating across France, with the violent clashes leading to arson, severe injuries and thousands of arrests.

Protests erupted late last month in Paris, spreading into a nationwide movement that has seen students blockade schools and take to the streets to voice their discontent with teacher shortages, long days and dilapidated school buildings.

Hundreds of schools have remained shuttered across the country as the rallies drag on. Education Minister Edouard Geffray said Monday evening that 190 students had been injured in the protests, with a 15-year-old boy reportedly losing a hand in clashes with riot police in the northern city of Lens.

France’s Justice Ministry said Monday that 5,060 people had been arrested since the protests started, 87% of whom are minors.

Although Geffray said in an interview last week that the movement was “legitimate at the outset,” France’s Interior Ministry said the unrest “no longer has anything to do with the legitimate expression of high-school students’ demands.”

Student body L’Union Étudiante said the protests would continue in various locations across France on Tuesday.

“Together, we demand resources for young people,” the union said in a Sept. 29 statement, according to a Google Translation. “We call for continued mobilization and for everyone to join in all its forms: rallies, blockades, and the [upcoming] demonstration.”

But the French government has little fiscal headroom to allocate funding to education. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s administration is about to start tough budget negotiations against a backdrop of division and economic turmoil.

Finance Minister Roland Lescure told reporters on Thursday that the 2027 budget was targeting a fiscal adjustment worth 54 billion euros ($60.7 billion). Cuts are planned to come, in part, from freezing wages for public sector workers like teachers.

Previous budget deadlocks have toppled French governments in recent years. Lawmakers have 70 days to debate and amend the budget proposal submitted by Lecornu’s government on Thursday — but previous governments have leaned on emergency laws to force budgets through after the politically fractured parliament failed to reach a consensus on fiscal policy.

Political instability linked to the division on spending and budget cuts has put pressure on French government bonds, known as OATs, which have also been weighed down this year by a global debt sell-off and concerns about the country’s finances.

The benchmark French 10-year yield has risen 129 basis points this year, according to LSEG data. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.