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French President Emmanuel Macron visits a school fund (archive image)
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Thibault Camus / dpa
The political will to keep schools open in France is still there - but apparently around 10,000 classes in the country are currently not taught in school due to the increased number of illnesses and quarantine cases.
This corresponds to about two percent of the classes, said Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer on Tuesday the broadcaster BFM.
Of around twelve million students, around 50,000 are currently infected with the corona virus.
Prime Minister Jean Castex had relaxed the rules for dealing with the corona virus in schools again the evening before.
If the case is positive in a class, all classmates must continue to be tested.
However, parents are no longer asked to pick up the children during the day and take them to the nearest pharmacy for a corona test.
This had triggered a lot of criticism before the new regulation, especially since a number of pharmacies no longer had enough tests available.
Now the children should stay in class until the end of the school day and then carry out three self-tests at home in the following days.
"We respond to the difficulties faced by families with common sense and pragmatism," said government spokesman Gabriel Attal.
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It was the third change to the protocol since the end of the school holidays in early January.
School classes have not been systematically closed since then, even if there are several cases.
However, more and more teachers are responding positively, which explains the increase in the number of closed classes.
Unlike in Germany, schoolchildren in France are not tested on a regular basis.
Unions call for protest
Teachers' unions have called for a demonstration on Thursday to protest what they consider to be inadequate measures.
Meanwhile, the Senate is discussing the vaccination record bill.
The right-wing conservative opposition wants to enforce that the passport, which corresponds to the German 2G rule, should only be valid from the age of 18.
In the current draft, it should apply to children from twelve, with exceptions for leisure activities in schools.
In France, the incidence is currently around 2,500 cases per 100,000 population within seven days.
The Omikron variant accounts for around 87 percent of all cases.
There are currently a good 3,900 Covid patients in intensive care units, seven percent more than in the previous week.
At its peak in April 2020, it was about 7,000 patients.
focus / AFP
