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France is set to shut between 400 and 500 high schools fully or partially Monday as authorities struggle to keep schools secure amid a widening student protest movement, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said Sunday.
The closures are expected to affect a number of schools comparable to Friday’s total, while the government is preparing for a gradual and partial resumption of classes, Geffray said.
The protests began at a Paris high school on Sept. 17 and expanded across France last week, bringing repeated clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Police have used tear gas and batons during some of the confrontations.
Students at the country’s high schools have raised complaints about frequent teacher absences, excessively long school days and rundown facilities, among other grievances.
Geffray said lessons would be "totally or partly suspended" at schools where security requirements "have not been fulfilled." Since the protests began, 24 schools have been "burned or ransacked," he added.
The education minister also blamed far-left activists for exploiting the student movement and pushing it toward extreme violence.
"There are activists, particularly from the far-left, who have infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves, and engaged in extreme violence," Geffray said.
At least 78 education employees have been wounded during the unrest, a figure the minister described as unprecedented. He also claimed the staff members "were deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system."
Organizers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, keeping pressure on the government as they demand concrete steps to address worsening conditions in schools.
The planned demonstrations come after several days of unrest that has spread well beyond the Paris region and disrupted hundreds of schools across France.
More than 5,000 people have been arrested since Monday, most of them teenagers, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez. On Friday alone, authorities made 1,747 arrests as protests affected 735 schools, while incidents of "urban violence" were recorded near 158 establishments.
Nunez said projectiles were thrown and that police officers, teachers, journalists and passersby were among those targeted.
The unrest has also drawn growing criticism of police tactics. While authorities have defended the response to violence and vandalism, critics have accused security forces of using excessive force against protesters, many of whom are minors. More than 600 police officers have also been injured during the unrest.
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