Greta Thunberg joins French teens on new day of school protests

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined a demonstration outside a high school in a working-class suburb of Paris on Tuesday as French pupils took to the streets for another day of protests over poor conditions.

Now in its fourth week, the nationwide movement to highlight teacher shortages, classroom overcrowding and the dilapidation of facilities has involved marches, blockades of hundreds of schools and, in some cases, clashes with police.

Pupils clustered outside the doors of several schools in Paris and other cities in the morning hours, brandishing placards and megaphones and chanting slogans, and marches were planned later in the day.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray told France Inter radio that about 200 schools were closed, although he suggested some of the closures were due to safety precautions as they were on the routes of planned marches.

Thunberg, who rose to fame as a teenage protester against climate change but has since broadened her activism, said the French pupils deserved wider support.

“They should know that all over the world we are following these developments. We are inspired by the young people who are demanding their basic rights,” she told reporters outside Lycee Paul Eluard in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, one of…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/world