France offers colleges €5bn and promises to scrap its unpopular university admissions system, but student groups are demanding more
Clashes between protesters and riot police in Paris, as largely peaceful nationwide marches turned violent by evening despite a 70,000-strong deployment that prevented the arson seen a week earlier.
The concessions include 3,000 extra substitute teachers for struggling high schools and the phasing out by 2028 of Parcoursup, the online platform students say entrenches inequality. President Emmanuel Macron admitted authorities had 'not anticipated at all' the scale of the unrest. Police arrested 1,435 people at Saturday's marches. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez expects more trouble on Halloween.
Rioters stormed Marseille city hall on October 17, during France's worst unrest in years.
Macron branded social media 'tools for mobilising the worst impulses'.
The turmoil comes six months before a presidential election, with Marine Le Pen the front-runner.
