France will totally or partly close up to 500 schools on Monday as student protests over staffing shortages and school conditions continue into a new week, Education Minister Edouard Geffray announced on Sunday.
Geffray said lessons would be "totally or partly suspended" in between 400 and 500 lycees because the security conditions required to keep them open "have not been fulfilled". He added that 24 schools have been "burned or ransacked" since the protests began, and that at least 170 students and 78 education personnel have been injured in the unrest.
A movement that keeps growing
The scale of the disruption is already vast. On Friday, the education ministry said at least 400 of France's 3,700 high schools were closed, while 560 faced protests or disruptions of some kind.
The mobilization began on September 17 at a high school in a Paris suburb, sparked by anger over a lack of teaching staff and school days seen as excessively long. Students also complained about timetables, overcrowded classes and overheated classrooms. The movement spread nationwide, with blockades at school gates and class strikes in many cities.
Crackdown and criticism
The response from the authorities has been severe. The interior minister said more than 5,000 people were arrested over the past week in connection with the protests, and that 85 percent of them were minors. Police have used tear gas and truncheons to clear blockades, tactics that critics have condemned as "disproportionate" police violence.
Geffray told French public radio that far-left activists had "infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves and engaged in extreme violence" — a claim that has not been independently verified. Amnesty International, for its part, said student protesters "must be listened to, not repressed".
Organisers of the movement have called for large-scale demonstrations on Tuesday, October 6, saying President Emmanuel Macron's government has offered no "concrete measures" to address their demands.
Sources: Al Jazeera: France to shutter up to 500 schools as more student protests called, AFP via Jamaica Observer: Hundreds of schools to shut Monday as student protests rock France, EWN: Up to 500 French schools to be totally or partly closed Monday - minister
Geffray said lessons would be "totally or partly suspended" in between 400 and 500 lycees because the security conditions required to keep them open "have not been fulfilled". He added that 24 schools have been "burned or ransacked" since the protests began, and that at least 170 students and 78 education personnel have been injured in the unrest.
A movement that keeps growing
The scale of the disruption is already vast. On Friday, the education ministry said at least 400 of France's 3,700 high schools were closed, while 560 faced protests or disruptions of some kind.
The mobilization began on September 17 at a high school in a Paris suburb, sparked by anger over a lack of teaching staff and school days seen as excessively long. Students also complained about timetables, overcrowded classes and overheated classrooms. The movement spread nationwide, with blockades at school gates and class strikes in many cities.
Crackdown and criticism
The response from the authorities has been severe. The interior minister said more than 5,000 people were arrested over the past week in connection with the protests, and that 85 percent of them were minors. Police have used tear gas and truncheons to clear blockades, tactics that critics have condemned as "disproportionate" police violence.
Geffray told French public radio that far-left activists had "infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves and engaged in extreme violence" — a claim that has not been independently verified. Amnesty International, for its part, said student protesters "must be listened to, not repressed".
Organisers of the movement have called for large-scale demonstrations on Tuesday, October 6, saying President Emmanuel Macron's government has offered no "concrete measures" to address their demands.
Sources: Al Jazeera: France to shutter up to 500 schools as more student protests called, AFP via Jamaica Observer: Hundreds of schools to shut Monday as student protests rock France, EWN: Up to 500 French schools to be totally or partly closed Monday - minister
