More than 400 schools in France will remain closed or operate on a limited basis on Monday, as authorities prepare for yet another week of student protests.
Classes will be suspended entirely or partially at 400 to 500 schools, as “safety conditions have not been met,” Education Minister Edouard Geffré, said on Sunday.
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The minister reported that 24 schools have been set on fire or looted, while 78 members of the teaching staff have been injured. The number of schools that will be closed on Monday will be the same as on Friday, while the government anticipates a “partial, gradual return to classes,” Geffre said.
Thousands of Students Take to the Streets
Thousands of teenagers staged widespread protests and set up roadblocks last week, protesting what they describe as underfunding and neglect of the education system.
Clashes with riot police resulted in hundreds of injuries and more than 5,000 arrests, mostly minors, triggering a serious crisis for President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government.
The weekend was relatively calm, but the organizers of the protests called for new demonstrations on Tuesday, arguing that the government has not presented “concrete measures.”
The government accuses political activists of infiltrating the protests
Authorities claim that political activists have infiltrated the protests, which began at a school in Paris on September 17 and subsequently spread to the capital and the rest of France.
“There are activists—particularly from the far left—who have infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves, and resorted to extreme violence,” Geffre said. “This clearly poses a danger to both our staff and our students.”
The minister argued that the injured school staff members were deliberately targeted, something he said “we have never seen before.”
The Students’ Demands
The protests took the government by surprise and pitted Macron against the most serious crisis in recent months. Images of burning barricades and police using tear gas, batons, and other means to disperse the demonstrations dominate television news broadcasts.
The students’ demands include overcrowded classrooms—with up to 40 children—problems with school buildings, low teacher salaries, staff absences, and an unequal system in which social background influences academic success.
Other reasons for the protests include the confusing and difficult online university application system, as well as high temperatures in classrooms during heat waves.
Protesters accuse the government of neglecting secondary education and cite problems such as leaks, cockroaches, collapsing ceilings, and abandoned buildings. Others are protesting excessively long school hours and a shortage of teaching staff.
Attack on a Teacher
The government acknowledges that the students’ demands are legitimate but condemns what it calls “civil unrest.”
On Sunday, police arrested a 16-year-old in connection with an attack on a teacher in La Ciotat, a city on the southern coast of France, between Marseille and Toulon.
The 59-year-old teacher was doused with gasoline and beaten during a demonstration on Friday.
Pressure from the unions as well
At the same time, the government is facing pressure from the unions, which had called for a one-day strike last week, aiming to force the new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, to reconsider the budget cuts and explore a form of wealth tax on the ultra-rich.
The CGT union called on workers to keep up the pressure by holding new demonstrations this week.
Source: iefimerida.gr
