NBA star Wembanyama to French students: ‘I hear you’

San ​Antonio Spurs player Victor Wembanyama offers solidarity to students protesting conditions at schools in France.

France’s ‌basketball star Victor Wembanyama voiced his support on Thursday ⁠for French ⁠teenagers protesting conditions in the country’s schools.

The Ministry of the Interior said 71,500 people took part in Thursday’s demonstrations, ⁠including 24,500 in the main Paris march centred on Place de la Bastille.

“These are systemic inequalities – problems so deep-rooted ⁠that, in fact, I’m glad that high-school students and young people in general are speaking up,” Wembanyama told a news conference on Thursday night.

“I hear them, and I support them, and ‌I hope the people all over there will do the same.”

The San Antonio Spurs player had previously replied “I would love to” when a fan asked him in an Instagram post to join the protest with the French teenagers.

“I have a lot of interest. I meant it,” Wembanyama ⁠added at the news conference. “I was in ⁠that position not so long ago.

“I’ve had the chance to escape this system, to escape these problems. But it’s chance, it’s luck. So I ⁠want to show my support.

“It’s not something that’s completely unfamiliar to me. I went ⁠to high school in Nanterre, which was ⁠already a stronghold of ‘blocages’ back then,” he said, referring to student-led school blockades.

Concerns about state schools have helped prompt a number of France’s most significant protests ‌in decades.

They began last month at high schools in the poor northern suburbs of Paris, where anger over teacher absences ‌and ‌shabby facilities quickly evolved into a nationwide movement against inequality, weak public spending and falling standards.