By Janis Laizans and Clotaire Achi
SAINT-DENIS, France, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined a demonstration outside a high school in a working-class suburb of Paris on Tuesday as French pupils took to the streets for another day of protests over poor conditions.
Now in its fourth week, the nationwide movement to highlight teacher shortages, classroom overcrowding and the dilapidation of facilities has involved marches, blockades of hundreds of schools and, in some cases, clashes with police.
Pupils clustered outside the doors of several schools in Paris and other cities in the morning hours, brandishing placards and megaphones and chanting slogans, and marches were planned later in the day.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray told France Inter radio that about 200 schools were closed, although he suggested some of the closures were due to safety precautions as they were on the routes of planned marches.
GRETA THUNBERG ‘INSPIRED’ BY FRENCH SCHOOL PROTESTS
Thunberg, who rose to fame as a teenage protester against climate change but has since broadened her activism, said the French pupils deserved wider support.
“They should know that all over the world we are following these developments. We are inspired by the young people who are demanding their basic rights,” she told reporters outside Lycee Paul Eluard in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, one of the schools where the protest movement first gained traction.
“Whether it’s not funding schools enough, or the climate crisis, or social injustice crises … it’s about time that young people are stepping up and reclaiming that future.”
Thunberg also criticised the police response, which has been fiercely debated, as an “extremely violent” sign that authorities were protecting the status quo and ignoring young people’s demands.
Riot police have used tear gas and charged at protesters in numerous incidents, injuring hundreds and arresting thousands.
The government suspended the use of stun grenades last week after one teenager lost a hand.
While left-wing politicians have criticised the police, far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and others have blamed violent protesters and highlighted damage inflicted on schools and injuries to staff and police officers.
The protest movement has added to a sense of uncertainty and crisis engulfing France six months ahead of a presidential election that could usher in the first far-right government since World War Two, led by Le Pen’s National Rally.
The cash-strapped government has promised to act to address the pupils’ concerns, but has little room for manoeuvre at a time when concerns over the national debt and the budget deficit are pushing up borrowing coststo the highest level in years.
Le Pen, the frontrunner to replace President Emmanuel Macron according to opinion polls, has said she would slash spending to bring public finances under control.
(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Dominique Vidalon; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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