A government spokesperson indicated that President Emmanuel Macron views the three weeks of student-led demonstrations — which have shuttered numerous schools — as rooted in concerns he regards as valid, while also contending that outside political actors have sought to take advantage of the unrest.

Spokesperson Maud Bregeon told reporters on Wednesday that the president — now inside the final six months of his mandate — had pressed the government to deliver concrete responses to the unrest among secondary school students within a few weeks. She spoke following Macron's routine cabinet meeting, a day after nationwide gatherings had drawn public displays of support for students.

According to a tally released by the interior ministry, gatherings held across Paris and other cities on Tuesday drew a total of 161,500 participants. Trade unions behind the demonstrations placed attendance at 480,000.

Clashes broke out along the edges of demonstrations in both Paris and Lyon, drawing a tear gas response from officers on the ground.

At a cabinet session, Macron conveyed through Bregeon that while young people's concerns carry validity, those concerns have, in his view, been drawn into political exploitation and channelled toward street-level disorder. Ahead of presidential elections scheduled for the following April and May, certain parties in opposition moved to draw political advantage from the street protests.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was running under the France Unbowed (LFI) banner as a presidential contender, took part in one of the demonstrations held in Paris. Rassemblement National, the party led by Marine Le Pen and currently at the top of polling figures, publicly aligned itself with officers deployed at the protests while attributing responsibility for outbreaks of disorder to the student participants.

Allegations of mistreatment directed at the officers involved have come from students, trade unions, rights organisations, and parents, with a number of the young people who took part in the protests reported to have sustained physical injuries.

Relatives of a 15-year-old student who lost his hand after a police stun grenade detonated on Wednesday filed for legal proceedings, calling for an independent inquiry into the incident. Bertrand Wattez, one of the attorneys representing the family, conveyed that Evan — the boy at the centre of the case — contested the version of events put forward by prosecutors, which drew on a police account stating that he had reached for the grenade at the moment it detonated on 5 October. Any involvement in the student demonstrations held in Lens was something he flatly rejected as untrue. According to the attorney, Evan sustained the loss of his left hand in the explosion, with several fingers on his right hand also affected.

Speaking at a parliamentary question session on Wednesday, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu put the number of students who sustained injuries during the protests at 248, attributing many of those cases to street-level violence, while also reporting that 937 law enforcement personnel and 149 members of teaching staff had been hurt.

Addressing reporters, the prime minister characterised the student demonstrations as having been co-opted by allies of France Unbowed to serve electoral ends. The justice ministry reported that detentions linked to the unrest — which began in late September — had reached close to 8,000. Of the 7,950 people taken into custody, roughly 85 per cent were under the age of majority, and formal charges were brought against 2,735 of those individuals. All 26 individuals who appeared before the court were held on remand.

A 16-year-old student permanently lost vision in one eye after a protest outside his school in Tours — a city in the Loire Valley region of western France — descended into disorder on 30 September. Those closest to him attributed responsibility to the officers involved. A formal charge of aggravated battery was subsequently brought against the officer by prosecutors based in Tours.

Thirty-six complaints about officer behaviour toward protesters are now the subject of internal police inquiries, the interior ministry confirmed. The police union Alliance announced it had taken legal action against the government, alleging that instructions relayed to officers during the protests were contradictory and placed personnel at risk.

A communiqué from officers described a sense of having been let down by political leadership, citing guidance they viewed as insufficiently clear and public remarks they interpreted as showing sympathy toward those involved in the unrest. Authorities indicated they anticipated the student protest movement would lose momentum over the fortnight-long school break beginning at the weekend.

Of the 3,000 substitute teachers pledged to 114 schools identified as most affected, around 2,000 had begun filling their posts, according to a government statement. Addressing parliament, Education Minister Edouard Geffray put the number of France's 3,700 lycées — secondary schools catering to 15- to 18-year-olds — at roughly two-thirds affected by the protests, with around one-third of those experiencing the full force of the disruption and the remaining third touched only at the margins.