France to close up to 500 schools as student protests resume

France plans to fully or partially close up to 500 schools on Monday as student protests resume over class sizes, teacher shortages and other grievances. Education Minister Edouard Geffray said the closures are a precautionary measure because security conditions have not been met in some schools. The move comes after a weekend lull, with organisers calling for fresh demonstrations early in the week.

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Geffray said lessons will be totally or partly suspended in around 400 to 500 high schools, a figure he said would be comparable to the number affected on Friday. He said 24 schools have been burned or ransacked since the protests began. According to the Ministry of National Education, at least 400 of France's 3,700 high schools were closed on Friday, while 560 faced protests or disruptions.

The protests began in mid-September in the Paris region and have since spread nationwide, leading to class strikes, blockades and demonstrations. Geffray said at least 170 students and 78 educational personnel have been injured since the unrest started. The interior minister has said more than 5,000 people were arrested in the last week, with 85% of them minors, underscoring the scale of the public-order response.

The closures highlight the pressure on France's education system and the wider political sensitivity of the protests. Students and teachers first mobilised over a lack of teaching staff, excessive school-day hours and other complaints, but the movement has broadened into a national challenge for the government. Protest organisers have said they are returning to large-scale demonstrations because they have not seen concrete measures from President Emmanuel Macron's government.

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The unrest has also drawn criticism over the policing response. Critics have accused the authorities of disproportionate force, while Amnesty International has said the student protesters must be listened to rather than repressed. Geffray has argued that far-left activists infiltrated the movement, hijacked it from students and engaged in extreme violence.

That dispute reflects the increasingly political character of a protest wave that began as a school-based mobilisation. What remains unclear is how many schools will actually be shut on Monday and whether the planned demonstrations will lead to further damage or arrests. The government has not yet set out any new concessions in response to the organisers' demands.

The next key test will be whether the partial return to lessons can proceed safely while protests continue to spread.

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