France closes more than 400 schools amid violent student protests

The minister said in a live broadcast on France 2 television: “At the present time, we have learned that a little more than 400 institutions will be closed tomorrow.”

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France.. A fire strikes Nelson Mandela High School in the city of Nantes amid student protests

The minister stated that the reason for closing schools may be due to the destruction of fire safety systems in light of the protests, as well as attacks on employees and workers there.

High school students in France have been protesting for several days against overcrowded class schedules, teacher shortages, and other problems in the education sector.

Some of these events are accompanied by riots and confrontations with the French police.

As BFMTV reported, the French government considers the school protests to have turned into street riots.

The spark of the protest movement began on a limited basis in the Ile-de-France region (Paris and its suburbs), and then rolled like a snowball to include most of the major French cities. The most violent confrontations were concentrated in low-income suburbs such as Seine-Saint-Denis and Paul Éluard High School, where students complain of deteriorating infrastructure and discrimination in the distribution of educational resources compared to wealthy areas. French riot police launched massive arrest campaigns that targeted more than 1,000 students within a few days (most of whom were minors and teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 years).