French pupils resume school blockades as country braces for more protests

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.