French high school blockades continue on return from holidays, minister calls them residual

Blockades on the first school day after the holidays

The ministry said 41 establishments were blocked at 09:30 on Monday, 2 November, about 1% of the roughly 3,700 schools in France. Geffray told France Inter that the disruption was limited to a few lycées in Île-de-France, the North and Toulouse, and said that in three quarters of departments no disruption had been recorded. The movement, which began in mid-September, has run for about six weeks.

In Marseille, seven lycées were blocked out of the city's 75 schools, according to student activists. At the Montgrand lycée in the city centre, rubbish skips were stacked in front of the gates. At the Berthelot lycée in Toulouse, at least six establishments were blocked, and students there raised the blocking installations to stop access to the building, an AFP journalist observed.

Students reject the government's concessions

Last week the government announced a package of measures meant to end the protest. Ministers promised a gradual replacement of Parcoursup by 2028, the cancellation of planned job cuts in the national education system, 500 additional posts, a cap of 28 pupils per class in seconde and 15,000 extra places in higher education.

Youth organisations called the package a first step but insufficient, and all of them called for the mobilisation to continue. The umbrella group, which includes the Union syndicale lycéenne, Unef, Fage and Union étudiante, is demanding an investment of 10 billion euros in education and higher education and the repeal of Parcoursup. Meriem, 16, said the answers offered did not meet what students were asking for, and Anton, 17, said that announcements which would be outdated within months would not end the movement.

Government response and the school year

Higher education minister was received at Matignon on Monday morning, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he was ready to meet the high school students again next week. Pia, 17, a final-year pupil at the Condorcet lycée in Paris, which was also blocked on Monday morning, said some measures could be acceptable while others were ridiculous.

Geffray warned that the baccalaureate candidates, with several hundred thousand of them having had no classes for four or five weeks, now face a risk to the school year. A 14-year-old seconde pupil at the Arènes lycée in Toulouse said he supported the movement but that the situation had become tense after a month without lessons.