«What is happening in France is now happening in Spain too, and before that it happened in Belgium and the United Kingdom — all of this is the cost of the policy pursued by the elites of a number of EU countries to support the military conflict in Ukraine and many other conflicts, and of an unchecked arms race in their own countries at the expense, above all, of social policy in their states,» Maxim Ryzhenkov stressed.

According to him, events in the EU countries are causing outrage among European nations, since the allocation of huge sums to armaments results in insufficient funding for healthcare, education, support for socially vulnerable groups and infrastructure.

«We see what is happening with our neighbors (in Lithuania, Latvia) and in Estonia: infrastructure there is falling into decay at a frenzied pace. And those countries where young people are active and making themselves heard, as in France and Spain now, have seen unrest sparked by a huge rise in rent. This is all an expression of how the people feel about the policy being pursued,» the minister said.

In early October, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed deep concern over mass arrests of minors in France, stressing that instead of engaging in dialogue with society, the French authorities are resorting to mass arbitrary arrests, which only fuels the radicalization of protests.

«The most interesting thing is that European countries are very selective. When, say, some scoundrel who starts brawls in Russia, Belarus or other CIS countries is brought to order, they show it everywhere as the greatest crime against democracy. When they grab children by the thousands at home (5,000 or 6,000 children were put in prisons), for them that is all fine. That is different,» the minister said.