France: What's different about today's protests?

Good to have you with us when we begin here in France where protests are underway across the country this Saturday. It brings together students, trade unionists and remnants of the Yellow Vest movement to demonstrate against the high cost of living as well as working and studying conditions. It follows weeks of protests by high school pupils in Paris suburbs over poor infrastructure and teacher absences. After an unsuccessful meeting with France's education minister on Thursday, Protesters say they will not let up the pressure on the government. For more on that, we have France 24's Jamie Smith-Mayer joining us. Jamie, good to see you. So what we're seeing today here is a continuation of the student-led movement from the past four weeks. What's different today? Yeah, absolutely. We're seeing that continuation on the streets today. There's still the strong message as well of this being a student-led movement in some ways. But what has happened today is a converging with a whole host of other groups there that you did mention. and notably as well the Gilets Jaunes, a number of other workers' unions as well who are joining the streets and the message today. The message also not just being one for supporting the solidarity of the student protests that we've seen recently, but also about the cost of living crisis overall in France, concerns as well about the cost of fuel and also the social security system, which is somewhat fraying, as a lot of the demonstrators on the streets are saying today. And now we have seen in the last few hours as well, images and footage from Paris and also Marseille, where there has been an outburst of violence, which is not dissimilar to images and pictures we saw in the last few weeks in the high school led movement. At the time, high school protesters as well condemned the outbreak of violence from the unions at the time. And there is quite heavy police force today as well in the streets in Paris, also down in the south in Marseille. And that is just part of the picture. This is a nationwide demonstration today. The minister for the interior said there would be some five to six hundred action points of mobilization that had been recorded. So we'll have to wait until later to get a full picture of where the day stands. But we know there will be tens, if not hundreds of thousands on the streets in Paris and elsewhere today. Jamie, you mentioned the gilets jaunes, the yellow vests in English. Remind us who they are and what their movement means. Yeah, so part of the message is jaune et jeune, youth and yellow today. And this was a grassroots movement which was really born in 2018 and was really at its peak between 2018 and 2020 in more rural areas in France, first of all, on the outskirts of big cities and really fighting at the time for a planned rise in fuel, a fuel tax hike against Emmanuel Macron and his government in his first term at the time. It's a movement that has, however, continued online. It was a grassroots movement, not associated with any particular political party initially, not associated with any union particularly. And that movement has continued, although somewhat dissipated after the COVID period. And we're seeing them joining in force and solidarity today with students on the streets with that same message, ultimately, of the cost of living crisis. And since 2020, obviously, two other geopolitical factors, Ukraine, the Middle East crisis, which has added to those concerns about the cost of living crisis. So that is part of the message today and part of the message of these converging groups that we're seeing on the streets today and will continue to follow this afternoon. Jamie, thank you very much indeed for that. Just a reminder to our viewers, if you are just tuning in to France 24, we are seeing live images there of the protests well underway in Paris and all cities. in many cities across France. We'll, of course, be keeping a very close eye on that and bring you all the developments as we have them throughout the day.