Millions of French children return to school after rescheduled Easter break

Millions of French children returned to the classroom on Monday as primary schools reopened after a three-week shutdown ordered to combat a severe third wave of Covid-19 infections.

Published: 26 April 2021 15:03 CEST

Millions of French children return to school after rescheduled Easter break

French president Emmanuel Macron visits a school in Melun as classes restart. Photo: Thibault Camus/AFP

Primary schools and crèches reopened as President Emmanuel Macron’s government began easing restrictions imposed when France entered its third nationwide lockdown on April 3rd.

Secondary schools and high schools (collèges and lycées) have another week of distance learning before reopening to in-person teaching in a week’s time.

Restrictions on people travelling beyond a 10-kilometre radius of their homes will also be dropped on May 3rd as the number of Covid patients in intensive care falls.

Non-essential shops, bars, restaurants and cultural and sporting venues are expected to be allowed to reopen from mid-May, depending on the health crisis.

On a visit to a primary school in Melun, about 50 kilometres southeast of Paris, Macron on Monday said that an unpopular nighttime curfew starting at 7pm would also soon be “pushed back a bit”.

A more detailed announcement is expected later this week.

On the agenda: What’s happening in France this week?

The French government made keeping schools open a priority throughout a second wave of infections in the winter, arguing that schools help combat social inequality.

Between March 2020 and March 2021, French schools were closed for only 10 weeks, compared with 28 weeks in Germany and 47 in the United States, UN figures show.

Macron, who is expected to seek re-election next year, drew fierce criticism however for rejecting calls by medical experts to order a third national lockdown in late January.

Two months later, with hospitals under severe pressure, he imposed a ‘partial lockdown’, but the latest confinement period has been more relaxed than others, with people encouraged to spend time outdoors.

Figures show the situation starting to stabilise, with the number of patients in intensive care flattening out below 6,000 in recent days.

The peak of the third wave “appears to be behind us”, Prime Minister Jean Castex declared last week.

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France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party has accused Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9th election.

Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority… to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said.

Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8am to 6pm for children of collège age (11 to 15).

“In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn,” said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government’s fortunes.

Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.

OPINION: No, France is not suffering an unprecedented wave of violence

Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect.”

Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.

Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations “like adults”, he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president’s second mandate up to 2027.

A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.