France’s education minister in Friday promised 3,000 substitute teachers for the country’s worst-off high schools, after tens of thousands took to the streets nationwide to demand better education and less police brutality.
Students have blocked entrances to hundreds of high schools for more than a week, with squads of riot police deployed — occasionally resulting in violent clashes.
High school students across the country — most aged 15 to 18 — have complained of absent teachers, overloaded timetables, dilapidated classrooms and buildings that cannot cope with rising temperatures.
In a bid to placate the anger, Education Minister Edouard Geffray on the evening news said the teachers would be deployed in the coming days to replace absent staff at the 114 worst-affected of around 3,700 high schools.
The interior ministry said 71,500 took part in protests across the country, most outside their schools, with police detaining more than 500 people.
In Paris, where some 24,500 took to the streets, a few fireworks streamed up into the sky as students from schools and universities rallied in Bastille Square.
Crowds of students climbed the famous monument at its centre, some waving the French flag and singing the national anthem. A student sat with his legs dangling on the top of a bus stop, clutching a sign reading: “Reason for absence: Too busy fighting for our future.” Jeanne, a 15-year-old student from a top Paris high school, said she wanted to show solidarity with pupils in less privileged areas outside the capital.
“There shouldn’t be people who are more educated than others when we’re all in the public education system,” she said.Marianne, a 20-year-old university student who also did not want to give her second name, said she objected against excessive police force in recent days of protest.
“For me, that’s just unacceptable,” she said.
