PARIS: Lessons were suspended at hundreds of French high schools on Monday as student protests over poor learning conditions continued to spread across the country, with larger demonstrations expected on Tuesday.
Students gathered outside several schools, blocking entrances and protesting against teacher shortages, overcrowded timetables, dilapidated classrooms and buildings poorly adapted to rising temperatures.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray said up to 500 of France’s 3,700 high schools, known as lycées, were expected to be partially or completely closed on Monday. Authorities said around a third of the 468 lycées in the Paris region serving teenagers aged 15 to 17 were due to be closed.
In the capital’s central third district, dozens of students chanted slogans outside Turgot High School, while passing motorists honked their horns in support. Other pupils entered the school to attend classes.
One cardboard sign read, “No means, no silence”, while another said, “We’re missing our lessons to give you one.”
In the western city of Rennes, more than 20 pupils gathered outside Montaigne lycée, with one holding a sign reading, “Not enough teachers”. Staff, however, allowed other students to enter their classrooms.
In Lille in northern France, masked protesters destroyed bus shelters and set fire to dustbins, while police fired tear gas at several hundred demonstrators.
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The movement began on September 17 at a high school in the Paris suburb of Créteil, in support of teachers striking over staff and resource shortages.
It subsequently gained momentum and spread across France, with some protests escalating into vandalism, including damage to bus shelters, fires at school entrances and clashes between protesters and security forces.
Thousands arrested
Education Minister Geffray said 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” since the protests began. More than 5,000 people, 85% of them minors, have been arrested, according to authorities.
Protesters have also accused police of using disproportionate force, while internal investigations have been launched into at least three alleged incidents of police brutality.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Sunday announced measures aimed at addressing some of the protesters’ grievances, urging local authorities to prioritise filling vacancies caused by long-term teacher absences and unfilled posts.
He also called a meeting with regional presidents for Tuesday to discuss plans to renovate the country’s often deteriorating school buildings.
The government is meanwhile seeking parliamentary approval for a bill that would make those responsible for damaging public property pay for repairs, rather than leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.
Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon defended the proposal, saying incidents in which teenagers damaged public property or their own schools raised questions about parental responsibility.
Lecornu has said the draft legislation, which was first introduced before the protests began, would allow compensation costs to be recovered from family allowances and housing benefits while preserving a minimum income.
However, Sophie Binet, head of France’s main CGT labour union, criticised the proposal as a “populist announcement”, warning that it would ultimately target the most vulnerable families.
