Limited French high school closures after students return to revive protests

On Monday, French students closed a number of secondary schools after the end of the autumn break, in a move aimed at reviving protests that have shaken the country despite concessions the government announced during the break.

The action followed hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, including students, taking to the streets on Saturday in protests that spread to several areas, the third consecutive weekend of demonstrations.

The spark for the movement was lit in September when high school students began protests over education conditions and social inequality.

The government announced measures that included changing the university admissions mechanism, ensuring a greater number of teachers, and setting a cap on the number of pupils per class, but some students consider these steps insufficient.

In the southern city of Marseille, protesters placed several trash containers in front of the entrance to a high school on Monday morning. 'We resumed the action because we received, as we were told, some answers, but obviously that is not enough,' said Mariam, 16, to AFP as she sat on one of the containers.

For his part, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that only a limited number of the 3,700 high schools had been closed, and that most of these closures were concentrated in the Paris area as well as regions in the north and south.

The minister urged students to return to classes to avoid failing exams, saying, 'I have students who will sit the baccalaureate exam at the end of the year, and several hundred thousand of them have not attended classes for four or five weeks.'

President Emmanuel Macron called for a calm return to schooling, saying that 'young people have been listened to.'

The government faces constraints on expanding spending to placate protesters as the economy nears the brink of recession and pressure mounts to rein in public debt, reducing the financial room to address students' demands by increasing expenditure.