France’s students go back to school amid concerns over Covid-19

With school bags on their backs and masks on their faces, France’s students headed back to class on Tuesday at the start of a school year in the shadow of the coronavirus.



some 12.4 million students in France returned to school on Tuesday, bracing for a year already clouded by Covid-19 and the restrictions imposed to avoid a resurgence of the disease.

The government has taken measures so that the year can begin “as normally as possible”, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said on Monday.

“School is mandatory,” Blanquer emphasised, adding that he considered the health protocol adopted by his ministry “simple and clear”, and reassuring parents and students that “in principle”, it was not expected to change much.

The protocol “is among the strictest in Europe, which allows us to begin the year as normally as possible”, he said during a visit to Mayenne, in western France.

Traditionally, parents of nursery school children have been allowed to accompany their children into class on the first day of school. Though he did not rule it out for this year, Blanquer reminded the public that “the idea is to avoid contact between adults as much as possible”.

He called on school principals to “be pragmatic”,

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