French education minister to hold talks with high school students later today
French education minister Édouard Geffray has invited the three leading high school students associations for further talks at the ministry later this afternoon.
This comes as a recent opinion poll showed that the French public broadly supports the protest – with three-thirds agreeing with the students’ demands, and 55% backing the demonstrations – but is divided on whether they should continue (Europe Live, yesterday).
Key events
More high school protests take place across France – in pictures
Back to France, let me bring you more pictures from this morning’s high school protests, which are taking place not just in Paris, but also in other cities, including Nantes and Bordeaux.
One dead, two injured in another knife attack at Polish school
We are getting reports of another knife attack at a school in Poland.
The incident took place in Leszczydół-Nowiny, east-central Poland, leaving one person dead and two injured. A 15-year-old boy was apprehended at the scene.
It comes just a day after a 17-year-old boy injured nine people in a separate school stabbing attack (Europe Live, yesterday). An improvised explosive device was discovered in his backpack.
Elsewhere in the country, another 17-year-old has been detained on suspicion of planning a similar knife attack.
In response to the wave of incidents, Polish police said they will step up spot checks near schools to scan for knives and identify suspicious behaviour.
EU drops sponsorship of disinformation conference at Trump officials’ request
Aisha Down in London, Joseph Gedeon in Washington and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
In other news, the Trump administration pressured multiple countries to withdraw their sponsorship of a leading European conference on disinformation, with Canada, Lithuania and the EU’s diplomatic service subsequently agreeing to do so, the Guardian understands.
The conference, #Disinfo2026, taking place Wednesday and Thursday, is the annual meetup of Europe’s counter-disinformation community and has drawn hundreds of researchers, journalists, technologists and policymakers to a hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is run by an independent Brussels non-profit, EU Disinfo Lab.
Days before the conference, the logos of its main supporters – the Lithuanian ministry of foreign affairs, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign ministry – were wiped off its website.
Photos of the event shared with the Guardian also show white stickers affixed over the logos of these organisations printed on official conference materials, appearing to indicate they were struck from the program in haste.
Three persons familiar with the matter, including European officials, confirmed that the US state department had been in touch with multiple governments over their support for the conference.
Internal state department documents seen by the Guardian also show US officials thanking Lithuania for “taking US concerns seriously”. The document says Washington was “grateful” Lithuania supposedly found a panel framing the US as a foreign information threat “reprehensible and surprising” and welcomed its decision to limit involvement in the conference.
French high school protests this morning – in pictures
French education minister to hold talks with high school students later today
French education minister Édouard Geffray has invited the three leading high school students associations for further talks at the ministry later this afternoon.
This comes as a recent opinion poll showed that the French public broadly supports the protest – with three-thirds agreeing with the students’ demands, and 55% backing the demonstrations – but is divided on whether they should continue (Europe Live, yesterday).
Morning opening: French high school protests continue despite PM’s promise of action
Jakub Krupa
High school protests across France show no sign of slowing down, with nearly 400 educational establishments facing disruptions this morning.
Demonstrators have rejected a promise by prime minister Sébastien Lecornu to present a plan to fix the country’s education system by the end of the month, demanding he fully engages with their demands sooner than that.
In a televised address last night, Lecornu said the country could not be “indifferent” to their concerns, and acknowledged that their anger “does not come from nowhere,” but did not make any immediate headline-grabbing announcements.
“We want real action, and until we get it, we’ll keep mobilising,” a high school student named Marilou in Fontainebleau told AFP.
I will keep an eye on today’s events in France as they unfold.
Over in Spain, I will look at reactions after last night’s death of María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis.
Elsewhere, Britain’s prime minister Andy Burnham will meet with Germany’s Friedrich Merz in Berlin for political talks. Unusually, however, the pair will not hold a joint press conference.
Lots to cover.
It’s Thursday, 8 October 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
