Nearly 200 students injured in French schools protests as clashes with police continue – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today.

• Nearly 200 French students have been injured since the protests began, France’s education minister Édouard Geffray said, at protests and violent clashes with police continued for another day (14:15, 16:49).

• A 15-year-old boy ‌had his hand ‌blown off at a protest outside a high school in the northern town of Lens, local authorities confirmed (14:04, 17:24).

• At least 5,000 people – 85% of them teenagers – have been arrested since the start of the protests (16:47).

• Tuesday is expected to bring even more disruption after different groups called for a national day of protests.

In other news,

• Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has once again staked his political future on a snap general election called after rightwing parties torpedoed emergency legislation to tackle the housing crisis (9:01, 9:04, 9:09, 9:10, 9:13, 9:17, 9:23).

• Pedro Sánchez is hoping to mobilise voters around the housing crisis and the broader message of hope, with opinion polls suggesting his left-wing government might otherwise struggle to retain power (9:37).

• As he deals with a fragmented left-wing bloc and criticism over the migration crisis in Ceuta, it’s not hard to see why the prime minister may have decided that an early election was preferable to several more months of legislative deadlock, mud-slinging and uncomfortable headlines (12:33).

• The opposition leader, the People’s Party’s Alberto Núñez Feijóo, welcomed the move, saying “at last” Spaniards will have a chance to oust the PM (10:24).

If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.

I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

in Paris

We are also getting a bit of a clarification about the circumstances of the incident involving the 15-year-old who reportedly lost a hand during French school protests (14:04).

Our Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis writes:

A 15-year-old protesting against what the demonstrators say are France’s dilapidated ⁠and understaffed ​schools ‌had his hand ‌blown off on ‌Monday at a protest outside a high school in the northern town of Lens, the local prefect François-Xavier Lauch ‌said.

Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, declined to comment on the exact circumstances, saying some 150-200 protesters had been hurling a series of objects at police and riot officers intervened. It was not certain if the incident had involved a police stun grenade, and how the injury happened. Lauch said ​an investigation ​into ‌the had ​been opened.

A police union source told AFP that the boy appeared to have picked up a stun grenade fired by riot police and that it exploded in his hand, but this needs to be formally established by the investigation.

Europe correspondent

In Spain, tens of thousands of people in 50 cities have taken to the streets amid mounting fury over the country’s housing crisis, their feelings made plain on a banner at the burgeoning protest camp in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol plaza:

“You can speculate on watches, jewels, crypto-Bros and Ferraris. But not on our fucking homes.”

In France, as high school pupils clash with police in often violent protests over long hours, missing teachers, crumbling classrooms and an opaque university admissions system, the angry slogans include:

“More hours in class than for sleep”, “Fund study, not repression” and “I’d like to be worrying about my maths exam, not my future.”

They may stem from different specific grievances, but the two waves of mainly youth-led protest exemplify a growing problem for western European governments: a generation of young people feeling increasingly denied the basic socioeconomic security that, by and large, their parents enjoyed.

French education minister Édouard Geffray said that at least 190 students have been injured since the protests began.

He said their injuries were caused “either due to accidents or injuries caused by troublemakers, specifically injuries from fireworks,” Le Figaro reported.

Let’s take a look at the latest as student protests in France continue.

Since ​last Monday, 5,000 people, 85% of them teenagers, ​have been arrested and dozens injured. Teachers and members of ​the public have been attacked, while damage to property is estimated in the millions of euros, AFP reported.

In other news from Romania, we are waiting for an update from the country’s prime minister Nicușor Dan who is expected to name his latest preferred prime ministerial candidate later today.

His last candidate, Siegfried Mureșan, lost a key parliamentary vote last week, forcing the president to have another go at finding a new person for the top job.

I am keeping an eye on that for you.

Separately, Romanian authorities said that two people died and others ⁠were rescued after a fire on a ship in the Black Sea outside Romania’s territorial waters, as Ukraine blamed ⁠Russian drones ​for the incident.

Romania’s interior ministry said 11 crew members of the ship which sank had been rescued. The country’s ⁠Naval Authority said the incident involved a fire on the ship Royad Mammadov, Reuters reported.

Romania did not comment on the cause of the ⁠fire but Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it had been caused by Russian drones. He ​confirmed the death of one ‌person in the incident but ‌said a second person had yet to be accounted for.

Russian authorities had no immediate comment. An earlier daily bulletin from the Russian ​defence ministry said Russia had struck two cargo vessels.

In other news, French president Emmanuel Macron Monday condemned Russia ramping up strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, calling it “irresponsible” after speaking with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy on ways to bolster support for Kyiv, AFP reported.

Russia “has made the irresponsible choice to intensify its strikes on civilian infrastructure and targets”, Macron said on X.

He said Zelenskyy and he reviewed “the concrete support we can provide” to help Ukraine intercept drones and defend itself against Russia’s attacks.

“We will yield neither to intimidation nor to Russia’s escalation,” Macron said, accusing Moscow of “stubbornly refusing all calls for a ceasefire.”

EU’s chief diplomat Kaja Kallas also warned Russia is putting lives at risk with its growing carelessness when it comes to hybrid attacks in Europe.

“Europe has seen a ⁠spike in the Russian hybrid attacks and sabotage attempts and airspace violations in recent weeks. Russian ⁠missiles and drones violated Moldovan airspace again over the weekend. ​And this is ‌completely unacceptable,” she ‌told reporters in Brussels, as reported by Reuters.

Over the weekend, embattled German chancellor Friedrich Merz also visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv, as the city continued to face attacks from Russia.

Two German scientists and an American peer have been awarded the Nobel prize in medicine for their work investigating the mysteries of the brain.

Peter Hegemann of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg and Karl Deisseroth of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University were recognised for “their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics”.

In a nutshell – their research led to the development of a light-sensitive switch that can be used to control nerve cells in the living brain, switching them on or off.

This is the week of the Nobel Prize announcements – with the Nobel assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, announcing the winners of the first award today.

You can read more about the scientists’ breakthrough below:

The euro has fallen to its lowest level against the US dollar since May 2025 amid concerns over France’s burgeoning public debt and an aggressive sell-off in government bonds.

Monday’s trade saw the euro drop as much as 0.9%, after four straight weeks of falls against the dollar. 1 euro is currently worth US$1.12.

The yield on France’s 10-year government bonds – the benchmark used to price fixed-rate mortgages, credit cards and other consumer loans- is now also nearing 5%, meaning the government is having to pay a significantly higher interest rate to borrow money. That multi-decade high will also affect consumer loans.

Spain’s snap election called this morning too is also adding to some of the Eurozone uncertainty and volatility.

The euro has also dropped further against the pound. It’s now worth 85p.

The French education minister said yesterday that 78 teachers and other education staff had been injured in the student protests so far, while in some cases, members of the public have also been caught in the fray.

But students have also accused police of brutality and using excessive, disproportionate force against them. Rights groups have also raised concerns over violent arrests.

Amnesty International said last week: “Images of high school students being subjected to violence by law enforcement are extremely concerning. Many of them are minors, children. They must be protected, not beaten with batons,” the human rights group wrote on X.

Along with this incident we’re hearing of in Lens this morning where a boy reportedly had their hand blown off by a police grenade, Amnesty last week reported that a 14-year-old had been hit by a grenade to the jaw where he lost several teeth, while other students had been arrested under chokehold techniques by police.

The French Human Rights League (LDH) on Monday also raised the alarm.

“We can see that in the instructions given to the police, there is no directive to show restraint, even though they are dealing with children,” LDH president Nathalie Tehio said.

A reminder that students are protesting en masse against the state of their schools – the overcrowded classes, run-down school buildings and shortage of teachers. The protests began on September 17 in the Parisian suburb of Creteil when students there joined their teachers who were striking over the lack of resources and staff.

Today’s violent clashes raise concern about tomorrow’s big “day of protests” in France, as several groups mobilise to show their discontent with the state of the education system.

But education minister Édouard Geffray insisted that the protests represent “a freedom that must be respected and protected,” Le Figaro reported.

But he strongly criticised “acts of extreme violence” including, in some cases, direct attacks on schools principals.

We are also getting some dramatic news from France, where the school protests continue for another day and hundred of schools are closed today.

A 15-year-old student reportedly had his hand blown off on Monday during a protest in Lens, as reported by AFP.

A police union source said the student in the northern town of Lens appeared to have picked up a teargas grenade fired by riot police, hoping to fling it back, but the device exploded in his hand.

Elsewhere, a 17-year-old was arrested after allegedly throwing a piece of stone at police officers, striking a passerby in the face and making him lose sight in one eye, Le Figaro reported.

In other news, Germany is at ⁠risk of entering a violent ⁠conflict as Moscow ​steps up an increasingly aggressive “shadow war” against European democracies, its head of foreign intelligence warned, as reported by Reuters.

“The confrontation we are facing with Russia has taken ⁠on a new, more dangerous dimension,” Martin Jäger, head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), told the annual public hearing of intelligence chiefs in parliament.

“Germany is in danger of becoming embroiled in ⁠a violent conflict with Russia – the attempted attack in Leipzig is just one example,” he said, describing Russia as “waging ​a shadow war” with the threat of attacks against ‌targets in Germany remaining “real and imminent“.

German ‌authorities have warned repeatedly that Russia is conducting a hybrid campaign of drone and cyber-attacks, and have ‌blamed it for an attempted drone attack on Leipzig airport in August.

Jäger, however, said Moscow was prepared to use force to achieve its goals, and that Russian intelligence services’ operations in and against Germany were “increasingly aggressive“.

“Russia ‌is putting us to the test and closely watching how we handle this situation. From the perspective of the Kremlin leadership, any sign of wavering invites them to further increase ​the pressure on Germany.“

Jäger said there was no indication of an imminent large-scale Russian attack on Nato territory.

“However, Russia could engage in low-intensity military activities, particularly in the Baltic states.“

Germany must prepare for more meddling and attempts at intimidation, including threats of nuclear attack, he said.

“Moscow is betting on our weakness”, he added. “We have to stand ⁠up to that.“

Jäger said Moscow was trying to compel Germany, Ukraine’s largest donor, to ​drop its support.

“Russia is determined ​to bring Ukraine to its knees ​this coming winter,” he said. “We must expect Russian attacks of a severity and brutality that we ​have not yet ‌seen.“

Pedro Sánchez only just scraped his return to office following the last general election in July 2023 after he won the backing of Catalan pro-independence parties by promising a controversial amnesty law to those involved in the failed, illegal push for independence from Spain in 2017.

Sánchez’s minority coalition government with the smaller, leftwing Sumar alliance, has struggled to get legislation through a fraught congress and has not passed a budget since 2023. Junts, which offered him its conditional support three years ago, has attempted to extract maximum benefits from the government, only to abandon it when it feels so inclined, as it did with the emergency housing measures.

Nor do his problems end there. The government has also been fiercely criticised over its handling of the continuing crisis in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, which was sparked when around 70,000 people crossed into the territory from neighbouring Morocco in the space of 48 hours.

Last, but by no means least, Sánchez’s administration, party and inner circle have been mired in corruption allegations over the past two years that have proved acutely embarrassing for a prime minister who took office vowing to be a scourge of sleaze and graft.

Faced with all that, it’s not hard to see why the prime minister may have decided that an early election was preferable to several more months of legislative deadlock, mud-slinging and uncomfortable headlines.

Sánchez, a politician with an almost feline allocation of lives, will be hoping that his efforts to tackle the housing crisis will contrast sharply with those of his rightwing opponents and thereby mobilise disenchanted voters.

He was also careful to remind people in his address on Monday that he has been one of the few political leaders to stand up to Donald Trump, to repeatedly criticise Israel over its actions in Gaza, and to warn of the death and destruction caused by the climate crisis.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given what’s at stake, the prime minister is once again pushing to characterise this latest election as a simple choice between progressive and reactionary politics.

“You, the men and women of Spain, must decide whether you want to join the far-right wave that drives regression wherever it governs, or to ensure that Spain remains a bastion of openness, social justice, and environmental responsibility.”

His opponents, meanwhile, will be hoping that, after eight long years, the public has grown tired and disillusioned, and that the great survivor of Spanish politics has finally lost his lustre.