Unions urge teachers to strike as French school exams go ahead in up to 40C heat

Children walk past a school in Paris this week with a banner complaining about the heat in the classrooms. Photograph: Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Children walk past a school in Paris this week with a banner complaining about the heat in the classrooms. Photograph: Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP/Getty Images Unions urge teachers to strike as French school exams go ahead in up to 40C heat Claims health of staff and children at risk as France struggles to adapt heat-trap school buildings Europe live – latest updates Teachers in France are risking their own and students’ health in overheated schools as a severe heatwave sets new record temperatures , education unions said, urging staff to strike over “unacceptable working conditions”. Several teaching unions on Thursday issued a joint statement denouncing a “blatant lack of preparation” by the government, after teachers have had to work in classrooms where temperatures reached up to 40C. “The health of staff and pupils is being put at risk,” unions said, suggesting staff strike individually wherever and whenever they felt it necessary. Most of France is under red alert, and the heatwave is expected to reach its peak on Thursday. Authorities closed 3,500 schools considered too dangerously hot and reduced hours at a further 10,000. View image in fullscreen Children take shelter in a playground in Grabels, near Montpellier, on Tuesday. Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images Most French school buildings – and their exposed playgrounds – were not designed for extreme temperatures. Many buildings are not properly insulated and most lack air-conditioning. Many schools were designed with large windows and no external shutters, causing classroom temperatures to soar above 30C or even 40C. In some nursery and primary schools, teachers have had to keep curtains closed and spray children with water to try to cool them. ‘It’s like a furnace’: French struggle with heat-trap homes as climate inequality grows Read more France is struggling to adapt its heat-trap school buildings for the exam season as hundreds of thousands of teenagers sit national tests in the heatwave . The education minister, Édouard Geffray, said on Thursday that the “brevet” exams, which more than 850,000 15-year-olds begin sitting on Friday, would go ahead despite record temperatures. Geffray said the exams would take place in the mornings and be over by midday. Desks would be spaced out to allow fewer students per room. Water would be handed out and rules adapted to allow students to take pauses and to leave their desk to cool down. He told France 2 TV: “We’ll try to create optimal conditions – well, less unpleasant conditions – for the exams to be sat. But I think it’s better for students to do their exams now rather than not at all, or to postpone until September.” View image in fullscreen The minister of education, Édouard Geffray, seen leaving the Élysée Palace on Wednesday, said exams would go ahead. Photograph: J