The student unions of France have confirmed that they will maintain the protests over the situation of education, after considering the meeting held this Friday with the minister in charge, Édouard Geffray, a failure, to whom they reproach the "absence of concrete proposals" to address the current crisis.
In a press appearance after the meeting, three spokespeople from the student organizations explained that, although they received "several responses" to their demands regarding school hours, mental health, and the deterioration of educational facilities, they did not obtain "any firm commitment" from Geffray, according to French media reports. The minister has not made any public statements so far.
During the press conference, the representatives also took the opportunity to condemn the episodes of violence perpetrated by a minority of protesters, incidents that have already left more than 2,000 detained and material damages valued in millions of euros. As an example, they cited the case of the lobby of the Nelson Mandela Institute in Nantes, destroyed this Thursday after a fire set by protesters, according to the local authorities' version.
The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, has indicated that at least 83 police officers and gendarmes have been injured since the start of the mobilizations.
The protests, which began last week in the Paris region, have progressively spread throughout French territory and are already disrupting the activities of hundreds of educational centers in cities such as Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon, and Marseille, among others.