“Around fifty additional students were injured by their classmates” during the back-to-school week, according to the Minister of National Education

“Never has any youth or other movement given rise to so many attacks against the institution, against the staff, more than 200 of whom [members] were injured, and against the students,” denounced Monday, November 9, the Minister of Education on the set of “4 Vérités” on France 2. According to Edouard Geffray, “around fifty students were injured by their classmates,” during the week of the start of the school year after the school holidays. All Saints.

Some "were injured quite seriously in terms of hearing loss with shrapnel from mortar fire", he added. Asked about the students mutilated by grenades thrown by the police, the Minister of Education replied that "when there is violence which falls outside the legal framework, it must be condemned. (...) But the priority is to put an end to the violence in a movement which does not need it", he added. “Blocking is illegal, because it prevents your classmates from going to class,” he declared, threatening blockers with “disciplinary sanctions.”

The Minister of National Education announced that he wanted to extend “catch-up classes” during the short holidays, to compensate for classes lost due to blockages. Edouard Geffray wants to take advantage of the “success courses” that already exist to try to catch up with the programs, “for example during the February or Easter holidays”. During these weeks, volunteer teachers, “paid for this”, will come and give “complementary or additional catch-up or training lessons”.