The French government plans to increase the number of third-level student places and make €4 billion ($4.5 billion) available for high-school renovations as it tries to end nationwide protests that have turned violent in recent weeks.

High-school students began to demonstrate in mid-September to denounce overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and outdated buildings. Their blockades and marches morphed into nationwide cost of living protests earlier this month that drew more than half a million people and descended into riots, arson and looting.

  • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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    4 hours ago

    The full article didn’t load for me, but weird how they can do this now. Not sure why they didn’t do this before people had to take to the streets. It’s like the government will do as little as possible until things finally reach a breaking point and once they found it are willing to give something up. Maybe if they took people’s issues seriously in the first place it wouldn’t have to get this bad.

    • patruelis@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Something has to give.

      The funding is not available, it needs to either be borrowed or taken from somewhere else.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        1 hour ago

        Or rich people can be taxed, that’s always an option. Or they can ignore oil lobbies and pump money into renewables to save money on gas imports. There are plenty of ways for a country like France to raise money when they want to do something.