Covid-19 pushing us to breaking point, says French headteacher

SAINT-MAUR-DES-FOSSES, France: French headteacher Laurence Coureul has spent the COVID-19 pandemic working long hours trying to keep her school running despite pupils and staff getting the virus, but with cases now rising again, she feels she’s reaching her limit.

"The teams are getting exhausted," she said of her staff at the Joan of Arc junior school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, a southern suburb of Paris, where this week another two classes were ordered home because some pupils were infected. "Getting by day-by-day cannot go on for a long time. At a certain point, one needs to make the tough decisions," said the 48-year-old headteacher. "If we need to close down, we need to do it soon."