Up to 500 French schools to close today

Up to 500 schools across France will be totally or partly closed on Monday due to the protests by teenage pupils that have shaken the country, the education minister said. Lessons will be "totally or partly suspended" in some "400-500" high schools as the security conditions "have not been fulfilled", said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Sunday, adding that 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked" since the start of the movement. The teens at French high schools, known as lycees, say that their studies are being ruined by high teacher absences, overlong school days and dilapidated facilities, as well as other grievances. Geffray said the number of schools affected on Monday would be comparable to the figure from Friday but vowed there would be a "partial, progressive return to lessons". - 'Deliberately targeted' - The movement began at a Paris school on September 17 but grew last week into nationwide protests marked in places by outbursts of violence involving teenagers and security forces, which sometimes used tear gas and batons to disperse the children.