French students vow fresh Halloween protests despite Macron's government pledging to scrap an unpopular university admissions system
Student leaders held talks with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu yet still announced demonstrations for 31 October and 5 November. The government's package limits second-year high school class sizes to 28 pupils and adds 15,000 university places. Parcoursup will be overhauled in 2027 and scrapped altogether in 2028. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has warned that Halloween looks set to be 'complicated again' following 1,435 arrests on Saturday.
The finance minister is insisting that concessions to protesters must come without any additional public expenditure.
Emmanuel Macron has pointed to social media as the force 'mobilising the worst impulses' that drove the rioting.
On 17 October, rioters briefly overran Marseille city hall in what has been described as France's worst unrest in years.