Transcrevo o artigo de Ana Vracar, que nos dá uma perspectiva sobre os acontecimentos, que reforça a ideia de provocação da própria atuação policial de extrema rudeza e indiscriminada, a receita exata para atiçar mais os manifestantes. Este comportamento dos corpos policiais é de tal maneira «desastrado» que vários elementos da polícia contestaram as directivas «dúbias» dos seus superiores.
Não seria impossível que o impopularíssimo presidente Macron faça uso dos seus poderes em decretar o estado de sítio, para anular as eleições, sob pretexto de clima de guerra civil. Na realidade, a «guerra civil» tem sido o que o próprio poder presidencial e a máquina que o apoia têm usado com frequência. É uma tática bem conhecida; os poderes autocráticos usam-na como pretexto para desencadear uma repressão feroz.
Manuel Banet
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Mass mobilisations against austerity policies and their effects are not winding down in France. On Saturday, 17 October, roughly 800,000 people joined protests across more than 1,700 assembly points, according to union figures—amplifying demands tabled over a month of student protests and demanding urgent action on the cost of living crisis.
In the aftermath of the protests, the government expanded local authorities’ powers to introduce curfews. This led to overnight movement limitation orders introduced in several cities, including central parts of Paris, Lille, Lyon, and Nice. Many of the curfews target young people in particular, reflecting institutional concern about the success of their recent mobilisations.
Over the past weeks, students launched a wave of school strikes and occupations, resisting the erosion of education services under successive neoliberal governments. Their movement drew support from trade unions and progressive political forces, who joined students on the streets to pressure the Lecornu administration to change course and prioritise public services and labour rights over armament.
Rallies and marches reinforced the student movement’s demands for accessible, equitable higher education, alongside trade unions’ calls for higher wages.
They also drew links to other historic moments of mobilisation, including the struggle for Algeria’s liberation. Many groups taking part echoed the anniversary of the 1961 demonstration that ended in the massacre of hundreds of people protesting for independence.
Police violence continues.
Teachers, families, and elected officials also joined, for a practical reason: to shield students from the law enforcement violence unleashed on their mobilisation.
Saturday’s protests were again met with police violence, with officers relying—unsuccessfully—on tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds. Serious injuries and cases of severe police brutality were reported throughout the day.
After repeated repression, and with neither the government nor President Emmanuel Macron offering credible solutions to protesters’ grievances, protests turned into riots. While those close to social movements emphasised the events were triggered by years of cuts and unimpeded attacks on workers’ rights, the middle and upper classes were indignant.
Macron channelled their reaction in his post-protest speech. He declared those responsible for the looting must be punished, while promising more “dialogue” and offering a mild acknowledgement of people’s concerns over fuel, food, and other essentials.
“There are people out there who rightfully feel that the price of fuel is too high,” the president said—before shifting responsibility elsewhere. He said rising prices were the result “of what is happening in the Persian Gulf—a war that France was not part of.”
The speech landed poorly at home and abroad. The Iranian government, for one, has repeatedly called out Macron for applying double standards between protests in West Asia and France, emphasising that the French president had expressed support for US plans in Iran and that ongoing mobilisations were a logical outcome of the policies he endorsed.
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Students reject Macron’s response.
In France, protesters called out Macron for failing—yet again—to identify a concrete way out of the situation facing the country.
“Since the beginning of this movement, high school and university students have been met with nothing but contempt and police batons in response to their demands,” the university students’ union Union Étudiante wrote. “Yet we have put forward a clear set of demands, widely supported by everyone who took to the streets on 17 October.”
“He did not utter a single word about the high school and university students maimed in the crackdown,” the organisation added. “He said nothing at all about the real violence committed on Saturday,” referring to approximately 2,300 arrests made on that day alone—and dozens of young people who were seriously injured over the past weeks.
“It is not a matter of engaging in endless dialogue but of responding concretely to the needs of high school and university students: income, housing, food services, healthcare, study conditions, access to degrees, and an end to repression.”
Lecornu attempts to blame left for chaos.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s reaction to the protests drew an equally negative response from progressive forces, especially after he suggested left movements were responsible for chaos and violence.
“What a pathetic politician,” wrote presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “He is responsible for the chaos—chaos he methodically prepared, whether through sheer incompetence or a deliberate ‘strategy of the worst’ aimed at conjuring up a ‘party of order’ that would make people forget his failure on the public finances.”