FRANCE ON FIRE: 500 SCHOOL CLOSED SOME BURNED TO THE GROUND IN STUDENT TEACHER PROTEST
Written by Michael Thervil
[FRANCE STUDENT TEACHER PROTEST] Today in France, due to the student-led protest over degraded schools, overcrowding, and other adverse conditions that negatively affect their learning process have now overrun communities and police. This morning France has closed an estimated 500 schools as protesting students from roughly 1,500 engaged in the destruction and clashes with police. In response, French police deployed tear gas and fired rubber bullets in an effort to quail the student led uprising. A little over 500 student demonstrators have been arrested and more are expected to be arrested the long the protest continues. There have been reported cases of student protestors becoming seriously injured with injuries that range from broken teeth to eye injuries. 24 schools have either been looted or burned to the ground.
French authorities have referred to the violent student uprising as a “climate of unacceptable violence” and calls for order from the French government have been declared. Many of the students are also joining in to protest the stratification of their learning experience due to their address as students feel that all students deserve an equal education no matter where they live. For many students, this protest is about more than adverse learning conditions, this protest is about classism and marginalization.
It's been just over a week since the student-led protest began, and it started right after the French government announced that it would be making cuts to its educational budget. These cuts were perceived as a major blow to the already strained educational experience of France's student body. Despite this, education minister Edouard Geffray stated that "education remained a priority and the below-inflation budget increase was due to population decline”. Despite this, students in France disagree. For many of France's student body, poverty is to blame for a lot of what's going on in terms of the level of injustice and stratification in France's educational system. That in conjunction with a declining number of teachers in the classrooms of France, it's been taking an additional toll on student learning outcomes – especially in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of France.
Because of this, students were not alone in their protest of France's educational standards. Teacher unions have directed teachers to strike and thus Teachers have also joined with protest with their students. Some of the teachers expressed that "Our students are losing out on study time. Some schools don't have drinking water. We are not equal to other departments” and the culling of 3,256 teachers also played a role in what France is going through now. Teachers have also expressed their concern over the lack of nurses and social workers employed in the educational system in France.
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