The left-wing mayor of the French town of Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris, said he stood by protesting high school students and accused the French government of failing them in an interview on Wednesday (October 7) a day after videos online showed him putting himself between riot police and protesters.

"They had decided rather to charge and effectively go after the students, who, for a good number of them, in the end, were not at all behaving aggressively towards the police officers who were there," Bagayoko, who is part of the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI), told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday at his town hall office in Saint-Denis, on the northern outskirts of Paris.

In the end, the police fired tear gas at the group on Tuesday (October 6), including the mayor, he said.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has said that law enforcement are not being instructed to confront high school students in the protests which have spread nationwide over a few weeks.

However rights groups, labour unions, students and some opposition politicians have accused the police of using disproportionate force to quell the wave of protests.

Bagayoko, a member of the hard-left opposition party ‘France Unbowed’ (LFI), said the response to the protests should be a political one rather than using the police.

“The state allocates fewer resources for working-class neighbourhoods than the affluent Parisian neighbourhoods. That is an incontestable reality”, Bagayoko said, saying that successive governments had made cuts to the education budget and creating a dire situation in schools in less wealthy areas.

Lecornu said on Wednesday the government would review the demands made by students and present proposals at the end of October on issues ranging from renovating buildings to make more teachers available, but gave no details.

The government has suggested that LFI politicians were behind the protests, an accusation that Bagayoko dismissed as insulting to the young protesters.

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PARIS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 6, 2026) (@ARYHOOVER/X - No resales, no archive, must on-screen courtesy "@aryhoover/X”) (ORIGINALLY SHOT IN PORTRAIT)

1. PEOPLE GATHERING AROUND MAYOR OF SAINT-DENIS, BALLY BAGAYOKO, AND PUTTING EYEDROPS IN HIS EYES AFTER HE WAS TEAR GASSED DURING PROTEST

PARIS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 6, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) (MUTE)

2. VARIOUS STILL PHOTOGRAPHS OF BAGAYOKO AT PROTEST

SAINT-DENIS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 7, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all)

3. BAGAYOKO LISTENING DURING INTERVIEW

4. (SOUNDBITE) (French) MAYOR OF SAINT-DENIS, BALLY BAGAYOKO, SAYING (DESCRIBING VIDEO ONLINE OF HIM AT PROTEST):

"And at Nation (Place de la Nation) we saw a fire and then behind it, a line of riot police who have helmets, shields, of course, who are equipped with tear gas canisters. And so, there was a moment when they decided to charge, and so I put myself in the middle, both to protect (others) and to ask them to stop. So, first they paused, and then there was movement in the crowd. They decided to go around us and it is at that moment when I can be seen (in videos online) backing up and asking them to stop, because they had decided rather to charge and to effectively go after high school students who, for a good number of them, in the end, were not at all behaving aggressively towards the police officers who were there. And so, I placed myself in front of them with my body by asking them to stop."

5. BAGAYOKO DURING INTERVIEW

6. (SOUNDBITE) (French) MAYOR OF SAINT-DENIS, BALLY BAGAYOKO, SAYING:

"And so, at a given moment, tear gas is launched. And so, of course, we were all there, choking in that. And we then we found ourselves with police officers, in the end, who were backing up, but who were within a hair's breadth, in reality, of coming to blows with the high school students who were present. And so it is true that at that moment there was astonishment, there was a bit of frustration to see that all the calls for de-escalation, in the end, had no effect because those who were there were really determined to come to blows with these high school students whom I remind you are largely minors."

7. MAGAZINE WITH PHOTO OF BAGAYOKO AT PROTEST ON COVER

8. (SOUNDBITE) (French) MAYOR OF SAINT-DENIS, BALLY BAGAYOKO, SAYING:

"And so we say in a fairly clear manner that the response to the legitimate demands of these high school students cannot be a police response. It must be a political response with proposals for really considerable measures."

9. VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF TOWN HALL OF SAINT-DENIS

10. (SOUNDBITE) (French) MAYOR OF SAINT-DENIS, BALLY BAGAYOKO, SAYING:

"The state allocates fewer resources for working-class neighbourhoods than the affluent Parisian neighbourhoods. That is an incontestable reality. The state is failing on the educational question in working-class neighbourhoods, it is failing on the question of social cohesion and is failing on the judicial aspect, so that, that is a concrete reality, it is not me who is inventing it, it is all the reports that are the parliamentary reports made over several mandates (of parliament) by now. And faced with this reality, the political response has always consisted of making cuts to education, that is to say that these are successive reductions, budget after budget, in the education budget, and so consequently, we find ourselves in the situation that we know, that is to say a situation of deterioration the conditions for students, deterioration of the attractiveness even of the teaching profession."

11. PEOPLE OUTSIDE TOWN HALL

12. WALKWAY WITH LETTERING READING "Saint-Denis"