France to close up to 500 schools after student protests
Photo: REUTERS
Authorities will partially or completely close up to 500 schools across France on Monday following recent clashes between riot police and student protesters.
French Education Minister Édouard Geffray confirmed the matter on Sunday. He said security conditions “have not been fulfilled,” forcing officials to “totally or partly” suspend lessons in around “400 to 500” high schools and people have “burned or ransacked” 24 schools since the demonstrations erupted.
Thousands of students have taken to the streets to demonstrate against educational standards, driving a movement that began last week in Paris before spreading to cities such as Montpellier, Nantes, and Marseille.
High school pupils and fellow demonstrators actively oppose severe shortages of teachers, overcrowded classrooms, and deteriorating school infrastructure. On Friday, French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin confirmed that violent protests had impacted 735 of France’s 3,700 schools “one way or another”.
While Geffray warned that the number of disrupted institutions on Monday might mirror Friday’s figures, he pledged to deliver a “partial, progressive return to lessons”.
Directly blaming political agitators for escalating the unrest, Geffray claimed, “There are activists - particularly from the far-left - who have infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves, and engaged in extreme violence.”
Emphasizing the dangerous environment created by the clashes, he added, “Clearly, this poses a risk to both our staff and our students.”
Geffray revealed that violence has injured 78 educational staff members, characterizing the toll as “something we have never seen before”. In response to the unrest, law enforcement officers arrested 1,747 people on Friday alone, according to French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.
Since the onset of the movement, law enforcement agencies have arrested over 5,000 people in total, with minors comprising around 85 percent of the detainees, according to the AFP news agency. Accusing the government of failing to enact “concrete measures,” protest organizers urged demonstrators to continue their rallies on Tuesday, AFP reported.
Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu stated on Sunday that the administration is implementing additional steps to “address the difficulties faced by high school students and educational staff.”
He outlined measures aimed at maintaining class schedules, upgrading facilities, restructuring the school day, and increasing transparency on the national university admissions platform.
Moreover, Lecornu announced that the government is expediting the parliamentary review of its “vandal-pays” bill, ensuring that perpetrators of property damage directly shoulder the financial costs of their actions.
Source: BBC (adapted)
