Riot-hit France closes as much as 500 faculties TODAY amid fears of recent violence after college students burned down their very own lecture rooms and attacked academics
Up to 500 schools in France are set to close on Monday amid fears of fresh violence as student protests continue to grip the country.
Lessons will be ‘totally or partly suspended’ in 400-500 high schools, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said today, adding that 24 schools had been ‘burned or ransacked’ since the start of the movement last month.
The news comes as thousands of youngsters went on the rampage over poor conditions in their schools this week – with public property set on fire and teachers ‘doused in petrol‘.
Officers made more than 5,000 arrests, 85 per cent of them being of minors.
The movement has rattled President Emmanuel Macron’s government, with a test of its severity set to come on Tuesday, when the influential CGT labour union is urging workers to demonstrate as well.
Hundreds of people have been injured during the chaos, with French police arresting a 15-year-old rioter this week after he used a makeshift flame-thrower to burn a woman’s face.
The attack was captured on video as thousands of youths protested over poor conditions, overcrowded classrooms and widespread teacher shortages.
Protests first erupted in the Paris region in mid-September, before spreading nationwide.
French CRS riot police stand in position on Friday amid clashes during a protest by students outside the Lycee Deodat-de-Severac high school
A rioter blasts a woman in the face with a makeshift flamethrower as French student protests descended into anarchy
Teachers and students protested against a lack of staff at a high school in Creteil, in the southeastern outskirts of the French capital.
From there, class strikes, blockades and demonstrations spread to other Parisian suburbs and beyond, with protests even reaching small towns.
Hundreds of schools have had to close because of attacks that targeted staff, according to the education minister.
More than 170 pupils and 65 staff members have suffered injuries, he said.
Pupils are up in arms about alleged inequalities in the school system, claiming that teaching, facilities and opportunities are not as strong for students in disadvantaged neighbourhoods – despite the promise of France’s national motto: ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’.
Placards held up by the first protesters in Creteil read: ‘Too many inequalities, we’re disgusted,’ as well as ‘Education is a right, not a privilege’.
Elsewhere, pupils complained that during summer heatwaves they roasted in classrooms without air conditioning, while allegedly freezing in winter.
French media shared videos of scampering rats, collapsed ceilings, leaks, broken furniture and other problems plaguing dilapidated schools.
‘The public needs to know that conditions for studying are no longer what they were for us,’ said Sophie Bordy, a 50-year-old literature teacher in Paris. ‘It has deteriorated significantly.’
Yet spending on education is one of the costliest items in the state budget that Macron’s government is proposing for 2027. It earmarked €65.5billion for schools – more than the €63.4billion for defence.
Student protesters set rubbish bins on fire and throw them forwards in a blockade near Place de la Nation in Paris
Firefighters work to extinguish flames rising from burning barricades put up by high school students during education protests in Nancy, north-east France
High school students wear masks and hoodies near the Lycee Deodat-de-Severac school in Toulouse, south-western France
Police officers stand guard at a protest in Paris over the state of education in France
French pupils also complained of long hours. In high schools, classes often start at 8am and can last to the early evening. Pupils’ compulsory school hours are among the highest in Europe, according to European Union figures.
‘I see the teachers more than my family,’ read one young girl’s placard photographed by Le Parisien newspaper.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, de-facto leader of LFI, a Left-wing political party, urged party members and supporters to protect pupils from the police by putting themselves in between the two sides.
Mr Mélenchon has denounced what he called the ‘savagery’ of police officers who have used tear gas and their batons to break up crowds. Police riot-control projectiles are suspected in some facial injuries that young protesters suffered.
Mr Mélenchon, 75, is making his fourth run for the French presidency and could be collecting young voters. In the last presidential election in 2022, they tended to vote less than other age groups but could potentially help Mr Mélenchon qualify for the decisive second-round run-off in May.
‘What we want is for this country’s young people to emerge from this episode with their heads held high, having won something and learned something, and to remember it when they cast their ballots,’ Mr Mélenchon said on Thursday.
Education Minister Geffray said the number of schools affected on Monday would be comparable to the figure from Friday but vowed there would be a ‘partial, progressive return to lessons’.
‘There are activists – particularly from the far-Left – who have infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves, and engaged in extreme violence,’ Mr Geffray claimed.
‘Clearly, this poses a risk to both our staff and our students,’ he said, adding that 78 education staff members had been wounded – ‘something we have never seen before’.
‘They were deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system,’ Mr Geffray claimed.
