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French High School Blockades Resume on Smaller Scale
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In Short: French high school blockades have resumed on a smaller scale after a two-week holiday break, with student unions calling for continued protests.
French high school blockades have resumed on a smaller scale after a two-week holiday break, with student unions calling for continued protests.
Student unions, including the Union Syndicale Lyceenne and the UNEF, have called for further blockades on Tuesday and Thursday, with the UNEF specifically designating Tuesday as a 'black day' for universities.
Pierre Sourzat, president of the student organization Les Lyceens!, said on Sunday that blockades would continue, emphasizing that the government's proposals did not go far enough.
The government has announced a gradual replacement of the Parcoursup admissions platform by 2028, cancelled planned education job cuts, and promised 500 additional posts and a cap of 28 pupils per class in the first year of high school.
Despite these measures, student representatives argue that the government's offers are insufficient and vow to continue protesting for the renovation of aging schools, more teachers, more university places, and an end to a university admissions system they see as socially unfair.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for classes to resume, while the government has announced a series of measures aimed at addressing student protesters' demands.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray warned that the school year is at risk for several hundred thousand pupils and that preventing access to schools is illegal.
The French public prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary inquiry into suspicion of 'attempted murder of public authorities' linked to a Molotov cocktail thrown toward security forces in Paris.
What's confirmed
- High school students in France have resumed protests on a much smaller scale than in previous weeks as pupils returned from their two-week holiday break.
- He said protests were allowed, but preventing access to schools was illegal.
What's still developing
- “In terms of blockades, or attempted blockades, the phenomenon is very marginal. We’re talking about a handful of units, a few individual schools,” Education Minister Edouard Geffray told France Inter radio.
- Students attempted to blockade schools in Paris, Marseille and Rennes, the Reuters news agency reported.
- Read more Some 320,000 demonstrators take part in largely peaceful protests across France Some high schools will be blockaded from Monday, when students return from a two-week holiday, said Pierre Sourzat, head of the "Lycéens!" group.
- "It will be more significant from Tuesday, but we know that some schools will be blocked as early as tomorrow," he told broadcaster RMC on Sunday.
- France's protest movement against soaring prices emerged from weeks of demonstrations by high school students protesting deteriorating learning conditions and inequality.
- On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people, including high school and university students, took to the streets across France for a third consecutive weekend of protests.
- As students prepared to resume school closures, Pierre Sorza said the pace of protests would rise from Tuesday, with some schools to begin closures on Monday, and he affirmed his group’s support for the students taking part. whether to foreground marginal blockades or mass unrest Reuters emphasises the protests’ small, marginal blockade scale after the break, while Rolling Stone foregrounds mass turnout and broader civil unrest.
- UNEF called on Saturday “to organize in all universities this Monday, November 2,” estimating that “Tuesday, November 3 should be a dark day for the universities,” with blockades of faculties and high schools across the country.