France Offers Plan to Aid High Schools

France’s left-wing government Wednesday unveiled emergency plans to improve conditions in overcrowded high schools and to try to end three weeks of protests by teenage students.

Education Minister Claude Allegre told the National Assembly that he will increase nonteaching personnel and offer regional authorities interest-free loans to refurbish state high schools.

“High school students have clearly said they want rapid reforms. . . . We are taking immediate measures regarding quantity and quality,” he said, adding that wider reform will be implemented at the start of the 1999 school year.

The announcement followed a fresh wave of nationwide protests Tuesday in which about 300,000 students demonstrated in scores of cities and towns across the country.

Student representatives said after meeting Allegre that they will resume protests after next week’s half-term holidays if they see no sign of change.

Opposition Deputy Jean-Claude Mignon of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic party denounced the measures as “symbolic and cosmetic” and urged the government to “stop talking and act,” while two of the main teachers unions called the measures positive but insufficient.

Teachers and students have voiced deep concern over deteriorating school and teaching conditions in overcrowded classrooms in high-rise city suburbs.

Allegre said he will offer $730 million in interest-free loans over four years to regional authorities that are responsible for building and maintaining high schools.

The loans will be used to build meeting rooms for students, giving them an outlet to voice grievances; to improve computer and language-teaching facilities; to build offices in which teachers can meet privately with pupils and their parents; and to bolster school security.