Education Minister Edouard Geffray said 400 to 500 high schools would fully or partly close on Monday after weeks of student protests.
France planned to close as many as 500 high schools fully or partly on Monday because of student protests, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Sunday. AFP reported that lessons would be totally or partly suspended where security conditions had not been met.
Geffray said 24 schools had been burned or ransacked since the movement began and that at least 170 students and 78 education staff had been injured, Al Jazeera reported. He described the closures as a security precaution and spoke of a partial, progressive return to lessons.
The protests started at a Paris school on 17 September and spread nationwide. Students have cited teacher absences, long school days and poor facilities. Organisers called larger demonstrations for Tuesday, saying the government had not offered concrete measures.
Valerie Pecresse, president of the Ile-de-France region, told Franceinfo that more than a third of 468 schools in the wider Paris region would shut on Monday, AFP reported. The ministry said at least 400 of about 3,700 high schools were closed on Friday.
Police have used tear gas in some clashes. The government had not announced a new package of school measures by the time of Geffray's Sunday briefing.