For this new school year, nearly 12.4 million students have returned to school, with the wearing of a compulsory mask. This Friday, September 4, the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer announced the closure of several establishments following proven cases of coronavirus.
A return that will have been short-lived. This Friday, September 4, the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, announced the closure of 22 schools in Metropolitan France and Reunion. "This is to be compared to the more than 60,000 schools, colleges and high schools that exist in France, so it's a small figure", said the minister. According to the figures, ten schools have been closed in Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, Marseille, Paris and Amiens and a dozen in Reunion.
"If there are more than three cases of Covid it triggers the closure of a school structure"
A rapid closure that intervened on Wednesday, the day after the start of the school year. About a hundred classes were also affected. "We trigger around 250 protocols per day, that is to say 250 suspected Covid, linked to factors external to the school", further informed the minister. "If there are more than three cases of Covid it triggers the closure of a school structure"
Indeed, some schoolchildren had to go home from the first day of school, as LCI indicates. "In Saint-Priest in particular, a small town in the Lyon metropolitan area where a CE1 student from the Marius-Berliet school group was found to be positive for the new coronavirus on the first day of the school year, Tuesday". His parents reportedly tested their child on the eve of the start of the new school year, on the recommendation of the Regional Health Agency (ARS), after the family came into contact with an infected person.
Following this first positive case in the school, the 23 other students in the class will now have distance learning lessons, for a fortnight. The other children in the school returned to class after a complete disinfection of the premises.
"Regarding the classes, it is around a hundred, it obviously varies every day"
To prevent the virus from spreading between students and teaching staff, each school is trying to adapt to the rapidly evolving epidemic. "Regarding the classes, it is around a hundred, it obviously varies every day", indicates the Minister of Education. In Saint-Didier-au-Mont-d´Or, near Lyon, following a positive test from a member of the teaching team, the entire group was isolated. The school will be closed for two weeks.
While in the department of Ain, extra-curricular care has been suspended in all schools in Ambérieu-en-Bugey, after three confirmed cases of covid-19 from three facilitators. In Paris, two classes at the Gros polyvalent school, in the 16th arrondissement, closed for two weeks after two cases of Covid-19.
The government is looking at childcare solutions
On Tuesday, September 2, the government said it wanted to create a support system for working parents, by asserting a right to care for sick children, "in case the class, where the school is closed", said on Franceinfo Gabriel Attal, Secretary of State to the Prime Minister. This alternative, subject to conditions, can only be applied in the absence of a custody solution from the town hall or the child's school. Also, neither parent should be able to telework.