"No Desks, No Teachers": High School Student Protests Spread Widely

[Anchor]

In France, protests by high school students demanding improvements to poor educational conditions have spread nationwide, with more than 5,000 students detained by police so far. Clashes have broken out in various places, leading to a continuous stream of injuries.

Here is a report from Paris by correspondent Kwon Yeongin.

[Reporter]

A high school building in western France is engulfed in flames.

Flames soar across various downtown areas in France, and physical clashes between police and students become severe.

Student protests that began at a high school in the suburbs of Paris on September 21 are spreading across the entirety of France.

On October 1, protests took place at some 1,200 schools, accounting for nearly one-third of high schools nationwide, and more than 5,000 protesters have been detained by police so far.

Injuries also piled up, leaving about 400 police officers and 70 school staff members hurt.

It was reported that one student was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet fired by police and lost vision in one eye.

Ultimately, education authorities moved to shut down schools last Friday.

This is a high school located near Paris.

As student protests intensified, education authorities issued closure orders for some 400 high schools across France.

As a result, the entrance gates are blocked off like this.

Students point to poor educational conditions as the biggest problem.

[Lila / French Student: Students are taking classes in extremely outdated classrooms. It is an environment where rain leaks from the ceiling, there is a shortage of even desks to sit at, and rats are running rampant in the classrooms.]

[Inès / French Student: In the summer, it is scorching hot to the point of dying. Last year, I took national exams in a heatwave exceeding 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) without air conditioning, and it was really hard to endure. We cannot continue studying under these conditions.]

Teachers are also drastically lacking.

Last year in France, classes could not be held due to a lack of teachers for a total of 15.4 million hours, which amounts to 7.5 percent of all class hours.

That means classes could not take place one hour out of every two days.

[Nathan / French Student: Even for core subjects where we have to take French or college entrance major exams, there are cases where we are left without a teacher for three to four months. This is a serious problem for numerous students.]

The main cause is cited as the government, suffering from financial difficulties, effectively freezing the education budget for over a decade.

The Minister of Education held meetings with representatives of students and parents and stated that they would immediately establish countermeasures such as addressing the teacher shortage, but students have gone on to announce a large-scale rally for October 6.

(Video reporting: Kim Si-nae, Video editing: Choi Jin-hwa, Video source: X(@BREF_ACTUALITES))
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.