French protests: President Emmanuel Macron meets student unions representatives

Well, our reporter Luke Schrager is at the Elysee Palace for us. Luke, good afternoon to you. So tell us what's on President Macron's agenda today. What are we expecting? Well, a day before we can expect to see another huge amount of mass protests across France, Emmanuel Macron is set to meet representatives from student unions here at the Elysee in Paris. Now, it's the first time that the president will be meeting face-to-face with students since the beginning of those student protests in September. But until now, he's left direct discussions to his education minister, Edouard Geoffray, and his prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu. There, they've made really little headway in terms of gaining any progress with their demands. The prime minister set up an online platform to deal with complaints. He also made one concrete concession that was a promise to hire 3,000 extra supply teachers. now present this afternoon will be associations representing high school students and the CAVL the academic councils of high school life now just a few moments ago they spoke to us here outside the Elysee saying that they were fed up of waiting that they were wanted a timetable on their legitimate demands as protests gather pace into much wider ranging uh much wider ranging protest against the cost of living crisis and so on now schools are currently on autumn break for about two weeks the government has been hoping that that might see the the students shed some of their momentum but given how these protests have grown to encompass the wider social malaise across france such as for example the the rebirth of the yellow vest movement and anger at the cost of living crisis it's left the government for the time being under siege facing wide criticism and complaint that has completely failed to address the crisis. Tell us more about what some of these student demands are and are they likely to get it? Well for students the demands have remained the same throughout the protests since September. They've been complaining about the dilapidated infrastructure and school buildings that are falling apart. They want a bias in the Parcoursup algorithm for the university admission system address. They want staff shortages and overcrowded classrooms handled and they also want the creation of 250 000 new places at university as well as reforms to student grants now in all that's been costed according to the students at around about 10 billion euros they want an investment package from the government now that is far far beyond the 1.1 billion euros that the government has allocated in its budget for education but few are under any illusions over much coming out this afternoon on tuesday we saw unions meet the government they came away with nothing yesterday on wednesday we saw opposition politician leaders meet the government and they left disappointed and more than a little angry as well because the government has been roundly criticized for resorting to what's been called a law and order response and maintaining order in the streets rather than addressing the underlying issues underpinning discontent that is spreading so much across France. Students are hoping that their case is going to be not subsumed by the wider discontent across France, but for them on Friday afternoon this is the moment for them to take their cause to the highest level of state. Luke, thank you for that. That's our reporter Luke Schrager for us at the Elysée Palace.