School problems, mass detentions and political background: Markov on protests in France

In France in late September in the capital region of Ile-de-France began protests of high school students. Today, events swept the whole country. In some parts of France, protests escalated into riots and clashes with police. About 7,000 people have been detained. In the talk show “Budni” on the YouTube channel “SBTV” and “Alfa Radio”, the Minister of culture Marat Markov commented on what is happening, writes sb.by.

As Marat Markov noted, the main problem that became the root cause of these protests was questions about the education system. In France, they talked about the need for school reform.

- Children went to protests and said simple things: in schools it is impossible to study, because the windows do not close, in winter it is cold, there is no heating, around rats and cockroaches, said Marat Markov. And most importantly, the school administration and the Ministry of Education are doing nothing. After all, initially the requirements were only such – to restore order in the field of education. No political demands, no demands for a change of power and so on.

And the most interesting thing, Marat Markov noted, is that these absolutely normal requirements provoked a rather harsh reaction from the authorities:

- But here we have to understand that Macron does not care. He is a passing figure, and today this figure is simply displaying wonders of stupidity in every way from foreign policy to domestic policy. The number of protesters is also significant. At the same time, many media outlets do not talk about violations of people’s rights during these protests – there are almost 7 thousand detainees, the vast majority of them are minors. Almost 2,500 criminal cases were initiated, 80 percent of minors were under investigation.

Moreover, Marat Markov said that what is happening in France is an exclusively internal, local problem and the severity of the suppression of protests is really striking:

- There are hundreds of victims on both sides. The whole set of special equipment is used for the protesters: stun grenades, rubber bullets and so on. A huge number of victims.

According to Marat Markov, what is happening in France has a political background. He said that many politicians in the country want to remove Macron before the end of his term. They use children as a resource. Everyone in France is affected, the minister said:

- Because all the riots are accompanied by arson of cars, looting and arson of shops. In fact, impossible conditions are created for the normal existence of people in those cities, in those places where these demonstrations take place. But this proves once again that the European authorities do not deal with domestic problems at all. After all, France spends hundreds of billions on Ukraine and on domestic militarization. If these funds were used to address school and social issues, there would be some kind of blocker for such protests.

The talk show "Budney" airs Monday to Friday morning on "Alpha Radio". Each issue discusses the most relevant topics from the life of the country and the world. Political scientists, scientists, public figures and journalists of leading media participate in the discussions. See the full version of the program on the VIDEOBEL.BY website and on the SBTV YouTube channel.