Education Minister Edouard Geffray said 400 to 500 high schools would fully or partly suspend lessons on Monday after weeks of student protests that have damaged schools and injured staff.
France will fully or partly close hundreds of high schools on Monday after a student protest movement that began in the Paris region in mid-September turned violent in places. Education Minister Edouard Geffray said lessons would be totally or partly suspended in some 400 to 500 lycees because security conditions had not been met.
Geffray said 24 schools had been burned or ransacked since the movement started. He reported that 78 education staff had been injured and said staff had been deliberately targeted because they worked for the national education system. Al Jazeera, citing the minister, also reported at least 170 students injured. AFP said more than 5,000 people, 85 percent of them minors, had been arrested since the protests began.
On Friday the education ministry said at least 400 of France's 3,700 high schools were closed, while 560 faced protests or disruption. A 16-year-old was detained on Sunday over an assault on a 59-year-old teacher in La Ciotat, who was struck and doused with gasoline on the sidelines of a Friday protest.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to fill gaps left by long-term absences and unfilled posts. He also called a Tuesday meeting with regional presidents on repairing school buildings. Organisers have called further protests for Tuesday, saying the government has not offered concrete measures.
Monday's closures are framed by the ministry as a security step toward a partial return to class, not an end to the dispute. Further decisions will depend on whether demonstrations resume and on the condition of damaged schools.