Glitches plague online schooling return in France

PARIS — French children, parents and teachers are battling with internet connection problems across the country after a nationwide switch to online learning saturated networks and embarrassed the government.

Paris prosecutors opened an investigation Wednesday into possible hacking into systems, and the government’s cybersecurity agency is investigating. Education Minister Jean-michel Blanquer announced cyberattacks on a state distance-learning network and blamed overwhelmed private networks and servers for other glitches.

But frustrated parents and teachers are blaming bad planning, too.

“They didn’t think ahead,” said middle-school history and geography teacher Maela Vercoustre, who hasn’t been able to convene a full-size class for two days. “I hope tomorrow will be better.”

After more than seven months of in-person class, the switch on Tuesday to all-online learning for all of France’s 12 million pupils was plagued with problems. Some were solved by Wednesday, but the Education Ministry announced a second day of cyberattacks on the state-run distance learning network.

President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged some “difficulties, some incidents.” While taking part in an online history and geography class for 14-year-olds in southern France on Tuesday, he said, “I know it’s not easy.”

His government sent all children back to school full-time in September to reduce learning gaps exposed during virus lockdowns last spring and to allow parents to get back to work. As a result, most French schools did not undertake major changes to adapt to remote learning like many did in the U.S.

After months of insisting that French schools wouldn’t close again, the French government was forced to backtrack last week amid a new virus surge fueled by a more contagious variant first identified in Britain.