Paris, France – President Emmanuel Macron plans to meet with high school student representatives as the country braces for further protests over the weekend. The meeting on Friday marks the first time the French leader has held talks with the student groups that have been calling for an overhaul of the education system since September. Students have called for more demonstrations to maintain the pressure while Jean-Didier Berger, the minister delegate to the interior minister, said the police presence on the streets would be increased by 20 percent.
Last weekend, largely peaceful demonstrations gave way to violent riots. Authorities were accused of failing to prepare adequately and are taking no chances before further protests expected on Saturday. A curfew in Paris will limit movement while protest bans are in place in Marseille and Lyon.
High school students have made their demands clear: better-funded schools, more teachers and a greater say in decisions affecting their future. With protests showing little sign of abating, a government weakened by political deadlock and mounting debt faces a difficult question: What can it do to bring young people off the streets? We want to see real change in our high schools.” Since mid-September, high school students have been protesting against teacher shortages; overcrowded classrooms, sometimes with more than 40 students; and dilapidated school buildings.
Their grievances have grown into a nationwide movement at a tense moment for France as it gears up for its presidential election in six months. He identified two priorities: a comprehensive overhaul of Parcoursup, the university admissions system, which many students consider discriminatory, and a 1.5-billion-euro ($1.7bn) emergency plan to improve school infrastructure before winter and summer. Other student organisations and unions are calling for an additional 10 billion euros ($11.2bn) for education, more teachers on permanent rather than precarious contracts and 250,000 additional university places.
So far, the government has announced 3,000 additional substitute teachers and an online consultation while its 2027 budget allocates an extra 1.1 billion euros ($1.2bn) to national education. But beyond these practical demands, one message emerged repeatedly in interviews with students: They want to be heard. After a meeting with student organisations on October 7, the Union etudiante, a national student union federation, said the minister could not give them any guarantees.
Another meeting is set for Monday at which the government said it will present a first set of decisions on staffing, teacher replacements and Parcoursup. Some observers doubted that these measures alone can address the deeper causes of the unrest: a sense of anxiety linked to a diploma that no longer guarantees a job, an ever-increasing cost of living and a sense that the state is not capable any longer of providing services. This is the root cause of these protests, and it can’t be fixed with a few measures, such as improving heating in schools and toilets,” said Jacques Reland, a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
