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The education minister says 400- 500 high schools will remain partially or fully shut following a week where riot police clashed with high school students as protests on classroom conditions have spread nationwide. Lessons will be “totally or partly suspended” given the unrest, says Education Minister Edouard Geffray.
He said 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” since the start of the movement. At least 5,000 people, mainly teenagers, have been arrested while dozens of people, including students and teachers, have been injured. Unions are calling on teachers to strike.
The protests began last week in the Paris region, with students staging sit-ins over conditions like overcrowding in classrooms, teacher shortages and dilapidated buildings. The rallies in some cases have become more violent with protesters wearing masks and setting off fires in the street and vidoes showing police officers using batons on students.
More protests had been scheduled for Tuesday this week, prompting law enforcement this weekend to say the situation had grown “out of control”. Paris police chief Patrice Faure told students to abandon their school blockades to return to peaceful forms of protest and suggested to parents there was influence from “professional rioters”.