Thousands Protest Against School Reforms In France

On Thursday, several thousand took part in protests in the Paris region and provincial cities including Lyon and Rennes in western France.

Thousands of French secondary school students took to the streets on Thursday to protest against government education reform plans and some clashed with police in the southeastern city of Lyon.

The government has already postponed plans to reform the secondary school curriculum after sometimes violent protests this month but students have kept up demonstrations to demand the plan be dropped permanently.

On Thursday, several thousand took part in protests in the Paris region and provincial cities including Lyon and Rennes in western France.

In Lyon, students threw stones at police, a car was overturned near the city's education headquarters and one school had to be evacuated after smoke from fires lit in nearby rubbish bins spread through the buildings, a Reuters reporter said.

Paris education authorities said about 40 so-called professional and general lycees out of a total of 105 in Paris were disrupted and the UNL students' union said pupils from 60 schools in the region around Paris took part.

"There are barriers set up filtering people going in and out, some lessons have been cancelled. It's quite a big movement," a spokeswoman for the Paris education authority said.

"The atmosphere is quite tense and there have been some incidents between blockaders and non-blockaders," she said.

The students have already forced an indefinite delay in the plans from a government acutely conscious of the danger of a recurrence of violent protests that shook Paris in 2005 and 2006 or the rioting by young people this month in Athens.

DISCUSSIONS

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the government was prepared to consider some changes.

However, he said there was no question of burying the project.

"We have decided to take more time with schools because there have been widespread misperceptions," he told Europe 1 radio. "We are going to reopen consultations, so we are ready to accept changes in the reform."

Protesters insisted they would maintain their action until the government backed down definitively and dropped plans to cut thousands of teaching posts as part of a broad programme of public sector spending cuts.

"We won't resume discussions until the government gives up its plans to cut jobs," said Alix Nicolet, president of the FIDL students' union, who contrasted cuts in public spending with the huge sums used to bail out crisis-hit banks.

"You keep hearing about the financial crisis, that there's no money for young people and on the other hand you give out billions to the banks and of course that creates discontent," she said.

Christmas holidays, due to begin on Friday, are expected to bring some respite but student leaders are confident the protest movement will resume after the break.

"There's so much hatred for the current education policy that we know there will be a very strong mobilisation," said Antoine Evennou, secretary general of the UNL.