Minister denies police brutality as student protests continue across France – Europe live, as it happened

• French interior minister Laurent Nuñez rejected allegations of police brutality in their response to on-going student protests, saying officers only intervene when there is damage or violence. Addressing French lawmakers, he said the protest movement was “unprecedented” because of “very serious violence,” Nuñez said a total of 6,629 people have been arrested since the protests began. Meanwhile, 761 police officers and gendarmes have been injured, alongside 215 students and 89 members of teaching staff.

• France PM Sébastien Lecornu listed five key areas the government will address: replacing absent teachers, improving school facilities, organising the school day, and revising Parcoursup, France’s web portal and pre-enrolment platform, to make it more user-friendly. He added the government’s initial decisions “will be presented at the end of October.” On the protests, he said: “The police have not been instructed to confront high school students.”

• A new Elabe poll for BFMTV shows that 55% of French people support the high school protests. While 35% oppose the movement, 10% say they have no clear view.

• US secretary of state Marco Rubio called for the nations of the West to return to their civilizational roots and restore the values that drove the rise of Europe and North America to global dominance for centuries in a speech in Athens.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia’s military of deliberately killing civilians and bombing residential buildings as a macabre gift for Vladimir Putin, who celebrates his 74th birthday on Wednesday. Ukraine’s president described Russia’s overnight drone and missiles strikes, which killed at least 24 people, as “despicable”. “The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,” he said.

• A knife attack at a vocational school in Ostrołęka, Poland left at least seven people injured, including two seriously, as reported by Poland’s RMF FM radio.

Lecornu listed five key areas the government will address: replacing absent teachers, improving school facilities, organising the school day, and revising Parcoursup, France’s web portal and pre-enrolment platform, to make it more user-friendly.

He added the government’s initial decisions “will be presented at the end of October.”

France PM Sébastien Lecornu has begun his address by discussing the high school student protests, Liberation reported. He said: “The police have not been instructed to confront high school students.”

Kate Connolly

A formal arrest warrant has been issued against Germany’s former top spy, with a judge ordering him to be held in pre-trial detention a day after he was arrested on suspicion of treason and spying on behalf of an overseas intelligence agency.

August Hanning, 80, is accused of buying secret documents from a former colleague and using them to advise a foreign intelligence service, according to the country’s office of the federal prosecutor.

Wednesday’s formal arrest warrant followed Hanning’s arrest on Tuesday, along with that of his former office head, Manfred D. It has sent shock waves through Germany’s political and intelligence community, with analysts calling it potentially the country’s biggest espionage scandal since the end of the cold war.

A lawyer for Hanning denied he had been involved in any wrongdoing on Wednesday, telling the conservative daily newspaper Die Welt: “While it is true that he ‌was in possession of confidential documents, the allegation that he passed on information contained therein to the detriment of Germany, let alone for payment, is incorrect.”

US secretary of state Marco Rubio called for the nations of the West to return to their civilizational roots and restore the values that drove the rise of Europe and North America to global dominance for centuries in a speech in Athens.

Rubio said: “It has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the ‘global community’ over one’s own people. And I think here, too, we have much more to learn from the men of Ancient Greece. They knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else.”

Rubio also urged Europe to uphold its traditional values.

“Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads.

“The next decade will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, and servitude, and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.”

Helena Smith

More from the Greek capital where visiting US Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has been dominating the news.

In a day packed with talk of energy and defense, gas ‘corridors’ and trade, counterterrorism and US military bases – all earning Greece the encomium of being the region’s “pillar of stability” according to Rubio – it is the foreign policy chief, himself, who has made the news.

Rubio’s decision to use the trip to deliver a major address “on democracy and its future” from the ancient Pnyx has imbued the visit with an air of excitement.

Until last night it was far from sure that the US secretary of state would have access to the setting because of security reasons.

Only hours before more than 1,500 protestors, appalled by the war in Iran, had marched through the streets of central Athens waving banners declaring him persona non grata.

Excerpts of Rubio’s address released by the State department suggest he will focus on the shared values that have united Americans and Europeans in what has also been described as a rallying cry for “a great renewal of the Western spirit.”

But there are also fears the US secretary of state may use the setting to make a speech in the spirit of the blistering attack on Europe issued by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security conference last year. The speech is scheduled to take place in the next half hour.

A new Elabe poll for BFMTV shows that 55% of French people support the high school protests.

While 35% oppose the movement, 10% say they have no clear view.

Support for the students’ demands is even higher, with 72% considering them legitimate – a view shared by majorities across the political spectrum, from left to right.

However, the public is far more divided over what should happen next: 55% believe students have made their point and should end the protests, while 27% think they should carry on.

French far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen offered her strong support for the police, saying “impunity must end,” and “those who vandalise our schools, and their parents when they are minors, must pay for the damage they cause.”

“The French people should no longer have to finance the vandals,” she told reporters on a visit to Cournon-d’Auvergne.

She also said the police should have the support of the nation, and “not face constant accusations from those in power,” as she chose to use the protests to criticise the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

“While the far left spreads false accusations to stoke violence, Emmanuel Macron once again chooses to undermine those who protect the French people,” she said.

Le Pen leads the presidential polls ahead of next year’s election, with 33-34% of vote share in the first round, well ahead of Édouard Philippe and Jean-Luc Mélenchon at around 16-18%.