Of the thirteen schools “particularly degraded” during the riots at the start of the summer, five will not be able to reopen at the start of the school year, announced Tuesday August 22 the Minister of Education and Youth, Gabriel Attal, during a visit to the elementary school Champollion, in the popular district of Grésilles, in Dijon.
According to the minister’s count, 250 establishments suffered damage. Among them, sixty “were the subject of a fire outbreak”, and “thirteen of them were particularly degraded”.
These degradations were perpetrated during the riots which followed the death of the young Nahel in Nanterre at the end of June.
The five establishments that will not reopen at the start of the school year are the Jean-Zay nursery schools in Mâcon; Robert-Desnos at Petit-Quevilly (Seine-Maritime); Etang-des-Noës in La Verrière (Yvelines) and elementary schools Marguerite-Perey (Strasbourg) and Bois-de-l’Etang (La Verrière).
“Other Schooling Solutions”
In total, these establishments welcomed “around 650” schoolchildren, detailed Gabriel Attal during a press briefing. “Other schooling solutions” have been found for these schools, the minister assured. “It will be a viable solution,” he said, with transportation provided by bus to another school, for example.
Just over 12 million schoolchildren, college and high school students in France are due to return to class in September, in nearly 60,000 public or private establishments.
The establishment visited by the Minister had also been targeted by an incendiary device on July 1 and a classroom had been completely destroyed. But the return to school for its 182 students can be done on time, “without delay”, promised the school director, Michel Hautin, after showing the burned-out classroom.
These damages led to the opening of a preliminary investigation “still in progress”, according to the prosecution.