France: Students resume protests after autumn break despite government concessions

French students closed some high schools on Monday after returning from their autumn break, seeking to reinvigorate the protest movement despite concessions made by the government during the holiday.

The closures followed the participation of hundreds of thousands of people, including students, in demonstrations across France on Saturday, marking the third consecutive weekend of protests.

The government announced measures that include reforming the university admissions process, ensuring a larger number of teachers, and capping class sizes.

However, some students argue that these steps are insufficient.

In the southern French city of Marseille, protesters placed several garbage bins in front of the entrance to a high school on Monday morning.

Education Minister Edouard Philippe stated that only a limited number of France’s 3,700 high schools were closed, mostly in the Paris region, as well as in areas in the north and south of the country.

Speaking to France Inter radio, he urged students to return to classrooms to avoid failing their exams.

He added, “We have students who will sit for the baccalaureate exam at the end of the year, and several hundred thousand of them have not attended classes for four or five weeks.”

As the EU’s second-largest economy approaches the brink of recession and faces pressure to curb public debt, the government has little room to ease the anger of protesting students by increasing spending.