France Shuts Up to 500 Schools as Student Protests Resume
Lessons will be totally or partly suspended at 400 to 500 French secondary schools on Monday because security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, the education minister, Édouard Geffray, said. Twenty-four schools have been burnt or ransacked and 78 education staff injured since the unrest began on 17 September. Organisers have called fresh demonstrations for Tuesday, citing a lack of “concrete measures”.
More than 5,000 people have been arrested in a week, 85% of them minors, according to the interior minister. Geffray blames infiltrators: “There are activists — particularly from the far left — who have infiltrated the high school student movement.” The grievances — classes of up to 40, crumbling buildings, staff shortages — are accepted as legitimate even by the government, which is also under union pressure to rethink Sébastien Lecornu’s budget cuts. At least 400 of France’s 3,700 high schools were shut on Friday.