Blinded Chilean student says protests won't end until president steps down

FILE PHOTO: Gustavo Gatica, 22, a Chilean student blinded in both eyes by police rubber bullets in a protest last year, receives lessons by an expert to learn to walk as blind next to his mother and girlfriend at subway station in Santiago, Chile, February 5, 2020. Picture taken, February 5, 2020. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean student who became a lightning rod for broad social unrest after police shot him in the face during a demonstration has said President Sebastian Pinera will never regain the trust of citizens and should step down.

Gustavo Gatica, 22, a psychology student at a Santiago university, said Pinera, a conservative billionaire two years into a second term in office, squandered an early window to engage with demonstrators' complaints of social inequality and elitism when unrest began in October.