New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- Up to 500 high schools across France will be partly or completely closed on Monday, 5 October, as a nationwide student protest movement over deteriorating school conditions continues to escalate.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Sunday that lessons would be "totally or partly suspended" at between 400 and 500 schools because security conditions could not be guaranteed. The figure is broadly in line with Friday, when about 400 high schools were closed amid blockades and clashes.

Geffray also said 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked" since the movement began. The minister said 78 education staff had been injured during the unrest, according to French newspaper Le Parisien.

The closures come after prote...