Dozens of high schools across France were blockaded again on Monday as the government braced for another tense week of protests over school conditions and the high cost of living.

The protests come amid warnings that weeks without lessons are putting some pupils’ school year and final exams at risk. As children returned after the two-week school holiday, students’ unions ignored President Macron’s call to end the lycée blockades, which have been running since September and have prompted one of the biggest protest movements and social crises of his presidency.

From early morning in Paris and its suburbs, as well as in cities including Lille, Toulouse and Marseille, schoolchildren demanding more replacement teachers and repairs to buildings barricaded school entrances with wheelie bins. Police officers outside some schools attempted to drag the bins away and made arrests.

University students’ unions were planning additional barricades at faculties on Tuesday. Trade unions have called for a large-scale strike on Thursday, with rail workers, teachers and private-sector employees planning to join demonstrations in cities across France to support schoolchildren’s demands for better conditions and protest against the rising cost of living and low salaries.

France’s education minister, Édouard Geffray, said he feared the school year was now “at risk” for many students in their final years who had missed weeks of classes because of the blockades and would be unable to complete coursework or catch up on the curriculum for exams. Nicolas Bonnet, of the headteachers’ union SNPDEN-UNSA, said he understood why high-school students felt the government had not offered enough to fix problems in schools, but urged more dialogue between the government and pupils.

The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said he would meet school students’ unions again next week.

Canada and Europe have announced a new alliance of like-minded nations to serve as both a “protective canopy under which our citizens can thrive” and a powerful hedge against the unpredictable nature of geopolitics, while welcoming other countries to join.

Speaking to reporters on Friday from Montreal, the prime minister, Mark Carney, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called the new partnership the Alliance for the Future and said the “deepest possible partnership between Canada and the 27-member bloc had the potential to offer unprecedented stability and opportunity”.

As they concluded their two-day summit, Canada agreed to contribute to a €90bn support loan for Ukraine. Leaders also said future discussions would lead to a more integrated market worth tens of billions of dollars, reduced trade and travel restrictions, and new educational opportunities for both sides.

While a trade war between Canada and the United States has seen Carney go hunting for new geopolitical partners, an over-reliance on American companies – especially for defence – has also given Canada pause.

Carney has also repeatedly raised the concern that Canada’s defense technologies could be at the whim of political actors or companies with opposing interests. He has been pointing to a planned merger between the Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere Inc and Germany’s Aleph Alpha GmbH as a step to lessening reliance on American AI giants; The tie-up will see the newly formed company have dual headquarters in Berlin and Toronto, and Canada’s federal government has announced a stake in Cohere worth up to C$1.6bn.

Beijing’s annual independent queer film festival has been cancelled after what is understood to have been a campaign of sustained harassment from authorities.

Beijing Queer film festival, which was due to begin on Friday in China’s capital, is one of the country’s oldest independent film festivals. Founded in 2001 by a group of Peking University students, the festival grew to become the only film festival in mainland China to offer a public forum for films and discussions exploring LGBTQ+ issues. But it is understood that police had increased pressure on the festival through repeated phone calls in recent weeks.

The Chinese authorities have grown increasingly intolerant of open discussion of feminist or LGBTQ+ issues. Film festivals in particular attract particular scrutiny because they provide an opportunity to platform narratives that sit outside the Communist party’s worldview. Beijing Independent film festival, China’s most prominent independent film festival, was closed down in 2014 after the authorities detained the founders and shut off the electricity supply to the venue. Last year, an independent Chinese film festival that was due to be held in New York was cancelled after harassment from the Chinese authorities, an incident which raised concern about transnational repression.

Hongwei Bao, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of St Andrews who focuses on LGBT issues, said that the festival was “a beacon for LGBT resilience” in China, so the shutdown is going to have a chilling effect for the Chinese queer community. Maya Wang, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said: “The Chinese government under Xi has been relentlessly tightening social and ideological control, and so any activities outside of those sanctioned by the party-state are subjected to intensifying scrutiny and often also official harassment.