SCHOOLS in deprived urban ghettos are experiencing an explosion of violence, including the stabbing to death of a teenage boy by a classmate last week. Teachers in several establishments have gone on strike to protest against increasing insecurity in the classroom.
The "social fracture" described by Mr Jacques Chirac during his presidential election campaign last year appears to be widening in troubled neighbourhoods. Its worst effects are to be found in schools, where teachers are suffering daily abuse at the hands of their students and other youngsters who enter illegally.
So far this week, a deputy head teacher of a lycee in Aubagne, southern France, received stitches after being beaten up by the father of a pupil, because his son's moped had a part stolen while he was at school.
Two teachers in a primary school at Dijon had to take a week off work after being beaten up by four adolescents, and a school bus driver was stabbed in the leg at Orleans.
Last week the Education Minister, Mr Francois Bayrou, was forced to announce special measures to help beleaguered teachers after staff strikes in seven secondary schools because of violence.
Mr Bayrou offered a "hotline" for teachers in difficulties, jobs as surveillants for unemployed youngsters from local neighbourhoods and special training for teaching in dangerous areas. But teachers have denounced the aid as completely inadequate, arguing that they need more staff and smaller schools.
Last Friday, the day after Mr Bayrou's reassurances, a 15 year old boy of Moroccan origin, Hatim Dahbani, was stabbed to death outside his school in the Paris suburb of Garge's les Gonesse, by a classmate and his brother.
The first strike in this series started in mid January in a rundown suburb of Rouen, Saint Etienne du Rouvray. Staff at the Louise Michel College refused to teach, worn down by the climate of violence both inside and outside the school. They complained of being insulted, pushed and struck by their students, receiving death threats and anonymous phone calls at night, of having their cars vandalised and their property stolen.
They returned to work after an eight day strike under police protection, in a still tense atmosphere. Meanwhile, staff at a secondary school in Colombes, a western Paris suburb, stopped work after their principal was violently beaten by a young intruder whom he had told to leave the premises.
Faced with such problems, which have their roots in the increasing delinquency of certain suburbs, there seems to be little the government can do except offer a heavier police presence.