French students demonstrate again, despite school holidays

As we speak, protesters are still taking to the streets here in Paris, and a demonstration has been organized by the Intifada student movement. It was initially banned by the Préfecture. Now a court has overturned that decision, and it is well underway. We can just see these images right now. It's very much a peaceful protest, at least according to these images. And we can turn to Ellen Gainsford, if she can reach us right now, a France 24 reporter. Ellen, I believe you can hear me. What is the latest? What's happening there on the ground? Well, hello, Jean-Emile. Yes, I'm right at the heart of that student protest, which is happening at the Hospital Saint-Bertier, which is in southeast Paris. I've been hearing students shouting, On n'est pas fatigué, which means we're not tired. And they've been telling me that they are determined to keep the momentum going on the student movement, despite the fact that it is currently the school holidays at the moment for high school students. And I have to say that when we initially arrived here, which was about 2 p.m., when the protest was due to start, that actually there was only police. It was very quiet, and there was a whole host of police vans, but no protesters. And that's because, as you said, the protest had initially been banned. And now having spoken to some of the student protesters, they seem to be saying that for them, they believe that this is a tactic by the police to initially ban a protest, and then only at the last minute give their go-ahead as a way of kind of putting people off from protesting. And one of the students I spoke to, they said that they've been frustrated as well with some of the violence that they've seen at protests. They've seen tear-gassing and students being hit with batons by police. This is students from City University who've been telling me that. And they're frustrated that this is detracting away from what they see as the demands of the students and the real meaning of the movement. And, well, we do know that student, representatives of students are set to meet with the education minister, Edouard Geoffroy, on Monday. And we'll have to wait and see what comes out of that meeting, whether any concrete measures are going to be announced that will satisfy this student movement. Ellen, thank you so much. I'll leave you to it. But that student movement very much the initial trigger for everything that we've seen across the country, which has escalated into the cost of living crisis protests. as well.