New York : US President Trump on Wednesday reacted to growing student protests in France, claiming the demonstrations reflected mass migration. More than 266,000 people took part in nationwide demonstrations on Tuesday, including 56,000 in Paris, according to France’s Interior Ministry.
Police fired tear gas and clashed with small groups of protesters in Paris after an otherwise largely peaceful march. Nearly 500 people were detained, the ministry said. Students have been blockading schools and boycotting classes for more than two weeks. Police have made more than 6,500 arrests since the protests began, most involving minors, according to officials.
French interior minister Laurent Nuñez defended the police response, saying it had been proportionate in “almost all cases” and that officers had intervened when protests turned violent. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the government and school authorities needed to listen to students and address their concerns. He also condemned what he called “ultra violence” around schools and rejected allegations of racism in the police response as a “lie”.
Even Trump’s handshake-heavy “bromance” with outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron has failed to keep the US leader from criticizing a key ally. But France responded to Trump’s reaction by comparing it to that of Iran, which earlier summoned the French envoy over what it called Paris’s “violent response” to the school protests. “You’ll get the Iranians’ version, perhaps the version from some Israelis, perhaps the version from some Americans,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
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