French protests enter 4th week: Demonstrations backing students gather strength

We can go to Clovis Casali, who is at the Lycée Eléonore Boucher, which is a secondary school in Paris' 20th arrondissement in the east of the city. Good morning, Clovis. What is the protest looking like where you are today? Good morning. Third week of protests here at the Lycée Eléonore Boucher. And again, students have placed rubbish bins to block the doors of this high school. Behind me, you can see a rather festive atmosphere with students, one dressed, two dressed up in dinosaurs, a hammock just here for those who need to rest because it is extremely tiring for these students who've turned up from seven o'clock this morning and who've been doing so for three weeks when you talk to them they all say the same thing they want more money for the school system here in France even though this is a high school that's in a rather good condition they want to express their solidarity with others in impoverished areas in the Parisian suburbs, for instance. They say, unions, that they want 10 billion euros more for the budget of the Éducation Nationale, the education ministry. And they also want teachers to be systematically replaced. It's not the case for the time being. And authorities, the government, has already announced that they would be placing 3,000 extra teachers, substitute teachers. Earlier this morning, the education minister, Edouard Geoffroy also gave an assessment on the situation, saying hundreds of extra teachers would be hired in the coming days, teachers with temporary contracts, it has to be said. Let's take a listen to Edouard Geoffroy this morning on TV channel BFM. Just under 200 high schools are closed, that is 4% of the schools affected by the protest. 96% of high schools in France are open, and in three-quarters of the departments, no disruptions have been reported. There are hundreds of thousands of students who have been unable to attend classes for several weeks, even though they want to. They can share their demands with their classmates, but they have the right to attend classes just like everyone else. The protests are showing no signs of dying down, with quite a large turnout yesterday. What's next for the movement, Clovis? well the students would like this movement to be the beginning of something a bigger unions student unions calling for a general strike they want other workers from the public sector from the private sector to join forces with them to step up pressure on the government and you've got of course this big march coming this weekend on Saturday and that will really give a sense of where this movement is going with students of course uh employees from the private from the public sector as well as the yellow vest movement the Gilets Jaunes remember who caused chaos and large demonstrations in recent years all joining forces this weekend for mass demonstrations across France and of course here in Paris thank you very much for that France 24's Clovis Ghazali, who's at the Lycée Hélène Boucher in the east.