French primary pupils trickle back to class after 8-week lockdown

A writing on the ground remind students to keep distance as they arrive at a reopen primary school in Cologne, Germany, Monday, May 11, 2020. Germany eases the restrictions to contain the corona virus most of the federal states. (Henning Kaiser/dpa via AP)

A writing on the ground remind students to keep distance as they arrive at a reopen primary school in Cologne, Germany, Monday, May 11, 2020. Germany eases the restrictions to contain the corona virus most of the federal states. (Henning Kaiser/dpa via AP)

Published May 12, 2020

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PARIS/VELIZY - Across France, primary

school pupils on Tuesday sat at least a metre apart in small

classes and listened to teachers in masks on their first day

back after two months of home-schooling during the coronavirus

lockdown.

The lessons, though, did not cover maths or grammar, but

hygiene amid a public health emergency: wash your hands, don't

touch your face and keep away from each other.

That was the new reality as some 1.5 million elementary and

primary pupils - roughly one in every four - returned to class

as France tentatively emerges from lockdown.

But with less than two months of the academic year left,

some parents, teachers and their unions have questioned the

wisdom of reopening schools when the virus continues to

circulate, especially in the greater Paris region.

The related COVID-19 disease has already killed more than

26,000 people in France.

"The school that the kids are going to discover will have

little to do with the school that they left behind," said David,

a teacher at a primary school in Paris' western 16th district

who gave his first name only.

"It's more like a nursery to let the parents go back to

work."

The government wants to ease lockdown restrictions to

resuscitate the economy and says the rate of infection has

slowed sufficiently.

RESISTANCE

Unions and opposition parties have pointed to the risk that

COVID-19 infections will pick up again, particularly in places

where distancing is difficult, such as schools.

"Why have we started with the youngest children to end the

lockdown when we know they'll be the hardest ones to make apply

protective measures?" said Francette Popineau, chief of the

primary school union, on FranceInfo radio.

Secondary school children are not due back until May 25, but

local authorities tasked with drawing up safety plans have

concerns.

Recently, more than 300 mayors from the Paris region,

including the capital's mayor Anne Hidalgo, warned against

rushing children back, as well as the financial cost for smaller

towns and the threat of legal action if pupils fell ill.

One of them, Pascal Thevenot, mayor of Vélizy-Villacoublay,

told Reuters it would be difficult to impose some of the

sanitary measures outlined in a 54-page government document.

"I'm not sure the people who wrote this have had children,"

he said. "I see this as an economic decision rather than an

education decision."

Many parents are still keeping their children at home.

Others, though, need to return to work or consider whether the

benefits to a child's mental well-being from returning to school

outweigh the risk of infection.

"I'm not too stressed, I explained to her the protective

measures and I had to go back to work anyway," Sandrine Delarue,

a kindergarten assistant, said as she dropped her 10-year-old

daughter Clara outside Vélizy's Mozart school.

As for Clara, there was no hesitation in going back.

"It won't be the same school, but at least it will make the

virus pass," Clara said. "I'm happy to be back, to see my

teacher, my friends and to learn in class." 

Reuters

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