Up to 500 schools are expected to close across France on Monday as student protests continue, according to the country’s Education Minister Édouard Geffray. The protests over high teacher absence rates, overlong school days and dilapidated facilities began at a Paris school on September 17 but grew into a nationwide movement last week. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.
🎥 Students seek ‘respect, dignity and decent working conditions’
Éric Fassin, a sociologist and professor at Paris VIII University, says he sees these student protests first and foremost as a demand for equality, dignity and recognition.
Students from working-class suburbs are asking for the basic conditions that make studying possible and, ultimately, the same opportunities as students elsewhere.
Hundreds of schools to shut Monday
Up to 500 schools across France will be totally or partly closed on Monday because of a wave of student protests that has shaken the country, the education minister said.
Lessons will be “totally or partly suspended” in some “400-500” high schools as the security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, said Education Minister Édouard Geffray on Sunday, adding that 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” since the start of the movement.
