Some 400 French schools have been closed and will remain shuttered on Friday as the student protests that began in high schools in the Paris region last week have spread across France and grown increasingly violent. The students are protesting grievances including teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings. The government has blamed the hard left for initiating the movement.
About 400 schools in France are expected to remain closed on Friday after student protests that began over education-related grievances escalated into violence in some places.
“There are a little over 400 schools and other educational establishments that I know of that will be closed,” French Education Minister Édouard Geffray said in an interview with broadcaster France 2 late Thursday.
Read moreTransport suspended in some French cities as school protests continue
According to a contact close to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, at a crisis meeting on Thursday intelligence agencies shared that the protest movement had been initiated by politicians from the hard left, including members of France Unbowed (LFI).
LFI lawmaker Louis Boyard denied the claim in comments to French broadcasters.
The protests against teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings erupted in the Paris region last month but have turned increasingly violent as they spread nationwide, with dozens injured and police making hundreds of arrests.
Student protesters started fires in at least two high schools on Thursday, while teachers were inadvertently splashed with petrol at a third in the southern city of Marseille, officials said. At least one car was torched in Strasbourg in the east, and riot police clashed with youths in Toulouse in the southwest.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)
