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                    "Paris, France \u2013 After nationwide protests turned violent, French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday night tried to strike a balance between acknowledging the concerns of students demanding changes to the education system and criticising rioters.\u201cThose who have destroyed property must pay. Those who have looted must reimburse their victims. Those who sought to bring down the republic will be held accountable,\u201d Macron said.But the president\u2019s speech was not what Yanis, a 20-year-old from Ivry-sur-Seine, a suburb just southeast of Paris, wanted to hear.\u201cHe gave his usual \u2018bla bla bla speech\u2019 without putting forward anything concrete,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be back on the streets anyway. There will be one demonstration after another until something changes \u2013 every weekend, without a break\u201d.As France grapples with widespread anger that bubbled over in the form of violent protests last weekend, appetite \u2013 at least among the country\u2019s youth \u2013 for centrist politics of the kind that Macron represents appears to be rapidly shrinking.The unrest in France comes months before the country\u2019s 2027 presidential election and has further sharpened political divisions, with parties seeking to present themselves as the answer to the frustration visible on the streets.The populist-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has embraced the student movement with enthusiasm, while far-right firebrand Marine Le Pen has focused on the disorder that came with the demonstrations, framing it as a crisis of security and authority. The centrist Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has accused the extreme left of instigating violence as a \u201cwarm-up round\u201d for the presidential election.Polling before the election points to a contest in which both the far left and the far right could play a central role. But while the country is demanding change, there is little consensus on what that change should look like. Macron, who has been in power for two terms, will need to step aside after the election, as the constitution bars him from running again.\u201cCandidates have no choice but to take a stand and address young people,\u201d said political analyst Beligh Nabli, a professor of public law at UPEC-Paris XII. \u201cThey have a political obligation to have a message aimed at young people. That message must not be empty, but it will have to answer their demands.\u201dSince launching their protest in mid-September, students have demanded better schools, more teachers and a more equal system. But the movement quickly spilled out of the schoolyards and into the streets, tapping into broader social and economic anxieties.The protests have brought these issues to the centre of the political debate in a way that might not otherwise have happened, given young people\u2019s comparatively low electoral participation and the tendency of political campaigns to focus on older voters and issues such as pensions, say analysts.\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for this mobilisation, it would have been business as usual,\u201d Nabli said. \u201cWe would have seen a kind of relative indifference from the candidates towards young people because they are not the social group that mobilises the most in elections, in contrast with those over 60.\u201dFrance Unbowed \u2013 La France Insoumise (LFI) in French \u2013 the left party led by Melenchon, has strongly supported the student movement to the point that critics have accused the party of spurring youth resentment and exploiting the unrest for political gain. Yet the party\u2019s appeal among young voters predates the protests. Its programme addresses several of the movement\u2019s central grievances, including investment in education, teachers\u2019 pay and the abolition of Parcoursup, an online platform students must use for higher education applications that many say lacks transparency.According to an OpinionWay poll for Les Echos, published on Thursday, Melenchon leads among voters aged 18 to 24, with 49 percent backing him \u2013 a 10-percentage-point increase compared with 2022.For some young protesters, support for Melenchon reflects both opposition to the far right and frustration with the political centre.\u201cI\u2019m going to vote for La France Insoumise to counter the far right, the National Rally, and the centre, which is basically going to give us a repeat of Macron\u2019s policies,\u201d said Lydia, 21, a student at the Ecole du Louvre who took part in a protest at the museum on Monday.But she said she was under no illusion that the party would necessarily solve France\u2019s problems. She also criticised what she sees as the demonisation of LFI by critics, arguing that even moderately left-wing positions are increasingly labelled extreme. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming rather exceptional to have empathy; it\u2019s becoming something extreme left-wing,\u201d she said.On the other side of the political spectrum, Le Pen and her National Rally party have sought to make the unrest a question of law and order, accusing the government of failing to be able to control the country, and its main competitor, Melenchon, of stoking violence. Le Pen remains the leading contender in the presidential race with 32 percent of the vote, while the National Rally ranked second among voters aged 18 to 24, behind France Unbowed.\u201cYesterday, you saw our cities, our streets, and our country mistreated, battered, and looted,\u201d Le Pen said in a video message on Sunday night. \u201cWe are experiencing a profound crisis of trust and authority \u2013 one that poses a threat to our democracy.\u201d She added that France was \u201ccaught in a vice \u2013 effectively held hostage \u2013 between violence and powerlessness\u201d.Caught between these competing narratives is the centrist bloc of Macron, whose presidency began amid the Yellow Vest protests and is now approaching its end against the backdrop of another major wave of social unrest. That earlier movement, initially triggered by a rise in fuel taxes, grew into a broader revolt against the cost of living and what demonstrators saw as Macron\u2019s favouring of the elite.One of the differences between now and then is that any government coming next will not have the fiscal room to quell the unrest by handing a cheque. Last year, the government recorded a deficit of 5.1 percent of France\u2019s gross domestic product, one of the highest among European countries. By contrast, the European Union average is 3.1 percent. Any future president will have to deal with Macron\u2019s headache: How to save money without deepening public anger.The current mobilisation has exposed a wider sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. The president\u2019s popularity stands at 15 percent, the lowest ever.In his speech on Sunday night, Macron blamed \u201cinsurrectionists from fringe far-left groups, joined by numerous criminals\u201d for the violence. But he only briefly spoke about the students\u2019 demands and offered no specific new policy measures to address them. Instead, he tasked Lecornu with bringing together students, teachers, unions and elected officials to develop proposals in the coming days, while promising a tougher response to violence.The unrest presents an opportunity for his opponents to argue that his presidency has failed to address deep-rooted inequalities. At stake is the support of a generation of young people who feel let down by the state and increasingly disconnected from the political establishment \u2013 and who all sides of the political spectrum are poised to woo in the coming months before the election."
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