Good morning. Mared Gwyn here with your Friday newsletter. Today: the perfect political storm that’s engulfing the French government, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plea to his international partners.
France’s simmering student anger: French students’ rage shows no signs of abating, as thousands took to the streets again yesterday in protest over conditions in public schools, including long school days, overcrowding and teacher absences.
La colère: Images emerged yesterday of Paris’s Place de la Bastille overflowing with demonstrators, with tensions reportedly boiling over into clashes with police by the evening.
Euronews’ France correspondent Estelle Nilsson-Julien writes from Paris that the mood is tense, with protesters expressing continued indignation at a lack of decisive action from the government. That’s despite authorities seemingly changing tack after an initial response that has been criticised as heavy-handed.
The education minister, Édouard Geffray, met with three major student groups yesterday afternoon, and later in the evening announced a range of measures. They include deploying over 3,000 substitute teachers currently without an assignment to schools, and hiring hundreds more staff.
A perfect storm: The tensions are escalating just as France enters a crucial phase in its political history, and as its economic trajectory takes a sudden turn for the worse, with a rapidly deepening sovereign debt crisis shaking investor confidence and raising fears of a broader financial crisis.
France's 10-year yield hit an eye-watering 4.96% on Thursday, its highest since July 2002. Its already-high deficit is projected to rise next year.
Brussels weighs in: On Thursday, the EU’s Economy Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, urged France to pass a budget in order to calm bond markets. “Putting in place a sound budget for the next year will be important to ensure this predictability and credibility and to reassure markets. I’m in contact with (French Finance) Minister (Roland) Lescure on this,” Dombrovskis said following a meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers in Luxembourg.
ECB also watching: According to people familiar with the discussions in Luxembourg, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde was asked about sovereign spreads and, while refusing to comment on France specifically, said the ECB had the necessary instruments to counter disorderly market dynamics. The Bank of France chief Emmanuel Moulin said earlier this week that ECB intervention was not needed in the “current conditions”.
The intensity of the protest movement has for many revived memories of the Yellow Vests movement – but arguably comes at an even more delicate political moment for France, with leaders on both the far-left and far-right aiming to capitalise on the discontent. More.
Hassan defends actions: Meanwhile, France Unbowed MEP Rima Hassan has defended her decision to remove an Israeli flag from an October 7 commemoration at the European Parliament in Strasbourg as an act of protest against the Israeli state in an interview with Euronews.
Outrage: Photos showing the Israeli flag lying on the floor along with the EU flag have sparked widespread backlash and allegations of antisemitism against Hassan.
Protest act: “I maintain my absolute opposition to the Israeli embassy being invited to the European Parliament, just as the Russian embassy is strictly prohibited from organising or co-organising events, from addressing the Parliament, or from having a platform there,” Hassan told my colleague Maia de la Baume.
Hassan also revealed that she had reviewed CCTV footage of the incident along with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, which she said showed her “rather softly, taking the Israeli flag down from its stand”. She denied intentionally knocking down the EU flag and said that neither flag was “trampled on, thrown about or damaged”.
Asked if she regretted the manner in which she expressed her views, Hassan said: “Sometimes, a political mandate can be accompanied by an activist gesture, a symbolic gesture.” Watch.
Ukraine-US talks: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that negotiators from Kyiv will travel to the US for talks today, as he issued a subtle criticism of Washington for its approach to Moscow.
"One cannot, on the one hand, negotiate with the Russians about future economic projects, whilst on the other hand saying that we find ourselves in some sort of diplomatic stalemate," Zelenskyy said.
His comments are seen as a response to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that current talks on ending the war are "proving elusive" because the fighting has reached a "strategic stalemate".
Ceaseless airstrikes: Zelenskyy has also urged European leaders not to “ignore” what’s happening on the ground after a Russian strike against two public buses killed at least 30 people on Thursday.
“This is a brutal Russian escalation – terror against people and life,” Zelenskyy said after speaking with European Council President António Costa about financial support, winter assistance and accession negotiations. Kyiv hopes to open two new accession clusters next week, but this is contingent on the approval of a minority rights law requested by Hungary.
Zelenskyy proposed a trilateral meeting with Costa and Ursula von der Leyen in the near future. Meanwhile, Costa confirmed that Zelenskyy has been invited to attend next week’s summit of EU leaders in person.
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