France's education minister, Edouard Geffray, has announced that 3,000 replacement teachers will be deployed "between tomorrow and Tuesday," according to Le Monde.fr. The announcement came Thursday evening as a wave of lycée mobilisation continues across the country.
The pledge of additional substitutes was reported by Le Monde.fr as part of its live coverage of the student movement. It follows earlier government announcements that, according to Le Figaro, have so far failed to calm lycée anger.
Reaction to the figure has been mixed. François Kalfon, a Socialist and Place publique MEP who backs Raphaël Glucksmann, told BFM that 3,000 extra teachers would be welcome but falls well short of what is needed, pointing to what he described as 15 million teaching hours left unreplaced.
The protests have not been limited to the classroom. In Aix, the presidency of Aix-Marseille University triggered a CRS intervention to clear students from a site, Marsactu reported. In Paris, Mediapart reported that the lycée movement remains focused and is keeping up the pressure, with participants saying they know where they are heading and what they want.
The scale of the mobilisation and the government's response to it remain the central questions. Whether the promised substitutes materialise on schedule — and whether they ease the tensions on the ground — is what to watch in the coming days.
