Скачать или смотреть FRANCE: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS STAGE PROTESTS (2)

(15 Oct 1998) French/Nat

Over 200 thousand French high school students have been staging protests throughout the country demanding that the government cut class sizes and buy more equipment.

Isolated incidents of vandalism - such as overturned cars - occurred but were mostly attributed to vandals who had joined the march.

Students are complaining that the French Education Minister promised to improve school conditions but has done nothing.

Students have been demonstrating off and on for two weeks, demanding more teachers and computers and other equipment.

And on Thursday, according to police, 28 thousand students marched through Paris to protest over the conditions in their schools.

In Bordeaux in the southwest, 20 thousand students turned up to march.

In the northern city of Rennes and Caen in Normandy the number was 10 thousand.

Some of the students chanted "high school students are angry. We are bored with this".

Authorities had advised merchants to shutter their shops and motorists not to park their cars along march routes.

Some of the cars that remained were overturned and their windows smashed.

A student union leader told French radio that without progress, his organisation would march on the National Assembly on Tuesday, the day before a vote on the budget.

And student leaders predict that protests will continue at least until the end of a school vacation in a week's time.

Union leaders are now meeting with Education Minister Claude Allegre to voice their grievances.

Allegre insisted the government had listened to the students and promised to improve school conditions.

He also promised that a plan to lighten the course load for high school students would be presented next month.

The government also faces opposition from teachers who support the students' demands.

One of the largest teacher's unions has called for its members to show solidarity with their protesting students.

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