Police fired teargas and blocked streets in Paris during protests supporting high school student grievances, high prices and the fraying of the social welfare system. A peaceful march was seen to turn violent as rioters threw fireworks around Place de la République in central Paris.
Student protests started last month over absent teachers and decrepit school buildings, and has developed into a bigger movement over cost of living and falling standards. Demonstrations broke out nationwide with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in Paris, Marseille, Lille and Nantes
French government investigating why cars funded by UK to prevent asylum seekers crossing Channel were used in school protests
French police have used 4x4 vehicles paid for by British taxpayers to charge at student protesters during the school protests that have swept the country.
The French government has confirmed that an investigation has been launched into why the cars, funded by the UK government specifically to prevent asylum seekers crossing the Channel, were used during a protest involving school students in Dunkirk.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Donald Trump’s decision to roll back sanctions on Russia as a “reward” for Vladimir Putin and warned it will embolden the Russian leader and intensify the Kremlin’s war, as Moscow launched one of its worst strikes yet on Ukraine’s power plants in an attempt to black out the country’s cities before winter.
The Ukrainian president also said he expected the Trump administration to lift more sanctions against Russia in the future and called for Europe to establish its own negotiations with Moscow as the US has sought better ties and business deals with the Kremlin.
Chilean-American author awarded Premio Planeta for sequel to her 1982 debut novel, The House of the Spirits
The Chilean-American author Isabel Allende has won Spain’s €1m (£843,000) Premio Planeta, one of the world’s most lucrative literary prizes, under a pseudonym, with a sequel to her celebrated debut novel, The House of the Spirits.
Allende, 84, won the 75th edition of the award on Thursday with La hora antes del alba, which returns to the characters of her 1982 novel, a multigenerational family saga set against political upheaval in a country inspired by Chile.
Andrew Bailey among finance leaders to leave session in Bangkok when Russian finance minister addressed group
The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has taken part in a walkout of finance leaders who left an International Monetary Fund meeting in protest against Russian involvement.
Bailey joined counterparts from France, Germany and a number of Scandinavian and Baltic countries who left the session in Bangkok when the Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, addressed the group in Russian.
Police fire teargas in Paris and Limoges town hall ‘largely lost’ to fire – with officials blaming violence on ‘ultra-left’
More than 1,800 people were arrested in France on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with police, with some demonstrations later spiralling out of control as buildings were set ablaze and shops looted.
Police fired teargas in confrontations with protesters, as demonstrations across France were boosted by other groups angry about high prices and the fraying of a social welfare system.While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully in street marches in scores of cities, violent fringe groups targeted public buildings, luxury boutiques and supermarkets and attacked police vehicles and officers.
Mark Smith, who has severe health issues, says he was told three times he needed to do nothing in order to remain after Brexit
A seriously ill British man living in Sweden has been forced into hiding amid fears he will be deported as a result of what he says is a government Brexit residency error.
Mark Smith, 60, who has had heart attacks, strokes, severe headaches and chronically high blood pressure that has been difficult to treat, was told on the phone he should leave Sweden by 17 October as he was an “alien” without permission to stay.
Amid blackouts, artillery fire and the onslaught of Russian drone attacks, the Richelievsky in Kherson provides a refuge for those with nowhere else to go
There is one important rule in the Richelievsky, Kherson’s last functioning hotel: close the curtains before dusk. Less than a kilometre away lies the Dnipro, the river that has formed the frontline since Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson in November 2022; Moscow’s troops are on the opposite bank.
In a city where Russian drone operators hunt civilians in what is now widely known as the “human safari”, even a sliver of light escaping through a window may be enough to reveal someone’s location after dark.
Hotel manager Yevhen Emtsov, 46, in the building’s former conference room
For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible, the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam
To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair
For slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books
To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a column by me for the Guardian
Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch
Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:
For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.
And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England
Finally, on the Spectator read Nesrine Malik’s recent column in The Guardian
As Andy Burnham talks up closer alignment with the EU and a poll suggests half in UK would rejoin, the B-word is back on the agenda
In February 2016, days after David Cameron announced the UK would hold a referendum on leaving the EU, he told workers in Slough not to imagine they could change their minds a few years down the line if they did not like how things panned out. Voting to stay in or leave was a once in a generation thing, he said. “This is a decision that lasts for life.”
Well times change, as the last prime minister but five could testify. A decade after Britain told Brussels where to go, Brexit is back on the political agenda. After years in which many politicians avoided any mention of the B-word, Andy Burnham broke the omertà in his party conference speech last month, saying he would look again at Britain’s relationship with Europe.
Whether it was youngsters proving their skills or state sabotage, Europe’s most hacked country was left with a mountain of waste after food began cooking in freezers
Shortly before midnight last Sunday, the digital thermostats controlling hundreds of supermarket cold aisles across France began to flicker and rise.
In a “bizarre and unprecedented” cyber-attack, hackers had remotely overridden the temperature settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets pushing them from as low as -27C (-16.6F) to well over 50C (122F).
To protest against shameful conditions in schools is entirely legitimate. The government’s response is not
As a secondary school pupil in 1994, I took part in protests against a reform that would have allowed French employers to pay young people below the minimum wage. Our campaign was successful, but if we had had to face the terrifying police response unleashed on student protesters in France over recent weeks, I would have stayed at home.
A 14-year-old boy, Eden, suffered a fractured jaw and had teeth knocked out after a police teargas grenade struck him in the face. Sixteen-year-old Maël lost the sight in one eye allegedly after being struck by a shot from an LBD, a form of rubber-bullet launcher. Evan, 15, had his hand blown off in an explosion involving a police stun grenade. And in Dunkirk, a police SUV is alleged to have driven repeatedly at groups of secondary school pupils, as an officer could be heard saying: “Come closer, we’ll smash their fucking faces in.” Accounts from children left terrified by brutal treatment in police custody describe traumatic experiences with severe psychological and physical consequences.
Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, film-maker, activist and Guardian Europe columnist
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Beijing warns against ‘discriminatory’ step after France drops opposition to British role in Made in Europe package
No 10 has left the door open to imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of the Made in Europe package, prompting a warning from Beijing that such a move would be “discriminatory”.
Pete Crockett says the history of British education is not simply one of children dutifully accepting adult instruction, while Simon Dawson saysKitty Sayersmisses the mark when describing English attitudes. Plus a letter from Kevin Donnelly
At Marlborough college, troops were once summoned to dislodge rebellious pupils occupying an island in the school grounds. In the late 1700s, Winchester college experienced several rebellions.
Ukrainian president says US limiting access was a ‘dangerous and unpleasant surprise’, amid reports the order came from inside White House
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the Ukrainian military’s access to the Starlink satellite internet service has not yet been fully restored, as media reports suggested the order to throttle the service had come from within the White House.
Zelenskyy met European leaders on Friday in Brussels, where he asked the EU for another €70bn (£60bn) next year to fund Ukraine’s defence against Russia.
Kremlin turning to punishment of Ukraine’s population in major cities as frontlines remain frozen
As Russian missiles and drones have systematically slammed into power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv this week, the rolling blackouts and water outages have increasingly resembled a supposed Russian blueprint to destroy life in major Ukrainian cities seen by the Guardian.
Even as Donald Trump unilaterally declared an “energy ceasefire” last week between Moscow and Kyiv, Russia continued with its methodical and devastating strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, in particular in Kyiv, in a strategy meant to punish Ukraine’s population and drive the country to capitulation.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was asked by Sky News at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, if he felt he was being made a 'scapegoat' by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, for domestic problems including high diesel prices before midterm elections. Zelenskyy paused for 15 seconds, before he eventually smiled and said: 'This is my answer.'
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