Covid-19: What you need to know about France’s new health rules in schools

Despite spiralling Covid-19 rates and cities toughening rules to slow down the spread, the French government has decided to relax health rules in schools. The changes entered into effect today.

Published: 18 September 2020 16:42 CEST
Updated: 22 September 2020 10:46 CEST

Covid-19: What you need to know about France's new health rules in schools

Children aged over 11 must wear masks in French schools. Photo: AFP

After consulting with the Scientific Council set up to advise the government on its Covid-19 strategy, the French government last week decided to raise the bar for closing schools after detecting Covid-19 on the premises.

“If only one child tests positive, the rest of children will still be able to go to school,” French Health Minister Olivier Véran said last week during a live televised speech to the nation where he also warned about spiralling Covid-19 rates across the country.

Véran said the risk of children infecting each other or their parents was so low that shutting down schools after detecting one case of the virus did not make sense.

“It is out of the question that we send all children home, or even close entire schools at the first alarm,” he said.

Olivier Véran: “Il n'y a pas lieu de renvoyer les élèves chez eux, voire de fermer des établissements entiers à la première alerte” pic.twitter.com/cynR8AsMSl

— BFMTV (@BFMTV) September 17, 2020

What will change?

The new health protocol, available on the education ministry's website (link here), outlines the procedure that is to be set in motion if a pupil is identified as a Covid-19 case;

The pupil in question is to stay home from school for at least seven days after receiving their test results. The exact number of days is to be decided by a doctor
The school director must inform the regional health agency straight after a case is confirmed at the school
The school must make a list of pupils and school personnel that could be at risk of being a contact case of the sick pupil. This list must be validated by the regional health agency
Instead of closing down the entire class or the whole school, only the people featuring on the list must self-isolate for seven days, while the rest of the school can continue as normal
Teachers on the list must test negative for Covid-19 seven days after their last contact with the sick pupil before returning to the school
Children on the list are not required to take a Covid-19 test, but they need to self-isolate for seven days before going back to class

Why are they doing this?

Only two weeks into the new semester, 81 schools and 2,100 individual classes had closed down.

The education minister has repeated several times that the government's goal is to ensure the school year becomes “as normal as possible,” after French children spent months away from the classroom.

Even with the virus spreading at an accelerated pace across the entire French territory, the government has decided that the price of closing down schools and keeping children at home is bigger than keeping schools open.

“We must not exaggerate the risk that children face. It’s essential that they continue to go to school, that is more important,” Professor Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, head of epidemiology at the Henri Mondor Hospital, told Le Parisien.

Read more about the health rules in place in French schools here.

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In a message sent to staff on Thursday evening, its management said the buildings in central Paris “will remain closed tomorrow, Friday May 3rd. We ask you to continue to work from home”.

A committee of pro-Palestinian students earlier on Thursday announced a “peaceful sit-in” at Sciences Po and said six students were starting a hunger strike “in solidarity with Palestinian victims” in war-torn Gaza.

Sciences Po is widely considered France’s top political science school and counts President Emmanuel Macron among its alumni.

Echoing tense demonstrations rocking many top US universities, students at Sciences Po have staged a series of protests, with some furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The Paris regional authority’s right-wing head Valerie Pécresse temporarily suspended funding to Sciences Po earlier this week over the protests, condemning what she called “a minority of radicalised people calling for anti-Semitic hatred”.

The war started with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7th attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel estimates that 129 captives seized by militants during their attack remain in Gaza. The military says 34 of them are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

A member of the student committee who identified himself only as Hicham said the hunger strikes would continue until the university’s board voted on holding an investigation into its partnerships with Israeli universities.

Sciences Po’s acting administrator Jean Basseres said he had refused that call during a debate with students, held at the university in a bid to calm days of protests.

Higher Education Minister Sylvie Retailleau earlier on Thursday called on university heads to “keep order”, including by calling in the police if needed.