Adefioye Iyunade
Schools reopened in France on Tuesday after the summer break, with face masks obligatory for teachers and for all children aged 11 an above.
France already opened almost all schools gradually in the last weeks of term before the summer, with authorities anxious for children to make up ground lost during a virus lockdown from mid-March to mid-May.
The country was one of the hardest-hit in Europe by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 30,000 deaths.
Infections have been rising rapidly again in recent weeks, at more than 5,000 daily for most of the last week compared with under 1,000 daily for the first three weeks of July.
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said that all children would have to go back to school unless they had a good reason, and parents should not be afraid.
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Blanquer said all schools were nevertheless ready to reopen, but his ministry had plans for moving back to distance learning if local lockdowns have to be re-imposed in the worst-hit areas.
President Emmanuel Macron tweeted an encouragement: “Education is an opportunity, it brings us together,” he wrote.
“This new term has many challenges, but at last we are all back together again!”
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