Massive Demonstrations. Injured Teenagers. French Students Say They’re Just Getting Started.
Student leaders and teacher unions are pressing for more funding, smaller classes and an end to police violence as 224 high schools were closed, officials said.
- On Thursday, French high school and university students organized fresh demonstrations, two days after a large turnout on Tuesday demanding more education funding, as teacher unions called for nationwide strikes in solidarity.
- Protesters demand more teachers, smaller class sizes, and climate-adapted buildings, with student union leaders calling for a $11.2 billion investment in education and proposals to rethink workloads and end a controversial university admissions system.
- Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced parliament will debate a budget proposal including 64 billion euros in education funding on November 12, while high schools replace lessons with a "period of internal democracy" through week's end.
- Interior Minister Laurent Nunez banned police from using stun grenades after injuries sparked horror, including a teenager losing his hand; police detained 488 people on Tuesday amid ongoing investigations into officer conduct.
- Despite government concessions, student leaders have urged fresh demonstrations planned for October 17, and five major teaching unions plan strikes. Nicolas Bonnet, national secretary of the SNPDEN-UNSA union, told BFMTV the proposed consultation period is "insufficient" to resolve the crisis.
32 Articles
32 Articles
Are the student protests losing bellows in France? Or is this just a temporary decrease in mobilization? According to the Ministry of the Interior, 71,500 people demonstrated this Thursday in several French cities to ask for more financial means for public education. The so-called "act 4" of the student movement was characterized by figures of less than those of the mass protests on Tuesday, when there were more than 256,000, the vast majority o…
MARSEILLE/PARIS — French teenagers blocked some high schools and marched through cities on Thursday as the government promised to address their grievances about teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings but gave few specific details. The protest movement, now into its third week, has exposed deep tensions in France between popular demands for investments in deteriorating public services and a cash-strapped government under pressure from…
There are also mobilizations against the precariousness of education in Nantes. High school and university groups reject the lack of responses from Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and announced a national strike with the unions
The main French cities welcome new mobilizations, to which a large part of the university centres already join after the Prime Minister has failed to calm his spirits with his announcements.
Several tens of thousands of young people again demonstrated in Paris on Thursday to demand resources for education, after two weeks of mobilization in France and government responses deemed unsatisfactory.
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