Hundreds of French Schools Closed Amid Protests

Several hundred schools in France closed totally or partially on Monday amid security fears following a wave of nationwide student protests, the education minister has said.

The protests by pupils complaining of poor conditions began at one Paris school on September 17 but last week mutated into sometimes violent demonstrations across the nation.

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Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Sunday that lessons would be totally or partly suspended in some 400 to 500 high schools on Monday, as the security conditions “have not been fulfilled.”

According to Geffray, the schools were being closed mainly as a precaution, with more large protests planned for Tuesday.

Geffray said the number of schools remaining closed on Monday would be similar to that on Friday but that there was planned to be a “partial, progressive return to lessons.”

He said 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” and 78 education staff members injured since the protests began.

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Valerie Pecresse, the president of the Ile-de-France region surrounding the capital, said that more than a third of the 468 schools in the region would be shut on Monday.

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The protesting teenagers at French upper high schools, called lycees, have complained of high rates of absenteeism by teachers, school days that are too long and dilapidated facilities.

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Organizers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, saying the government was still failing to propose “concrete measures” to remedy the situation.

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More than 5,000 people, 85% of them minors, have been arrested since the start of the movement.

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