PARIS, France – French schools have begun allowing students to smoke on their grounds to prevent them becoming terror targets on the streets outside, a union says. The union of school administrators first called for the measure days after the Paris attacks in November, but the health ministry refused. The SNPDEN union renewed its call last week, but a union official said some schools had already gone ahead anyway.

A third of French teenagers smoke, according to government statistics. “Students massing on the street constitutes a very high risk, one that is certainly greater than that posed by the consumption of tobacco,” SNPDEN Deputy Secretary General Michel Richard told France Info. Mr Michel said the union was not attempting to minimize the dangers linked to smoking, but he said it was “necessary in this particular context to protect against the biggest risks”. France’s health ministry refused the union’s initial request to allow smoking on school grounds, saying the state of emergency currently in force in France “did not affect rules about smoking”, Mr Michel said.(BBC)...[+]