Niantic LabsFrance’s education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is a bit worried about Pokemon GO. She reckons the game presents a security risk, as strangers might be encouraged to walk into schools to catch rare Pokemon.
As a result, she would like to see rare Pokemon removed from school grounds across France. But hey – Pokemon have a right to education too.
Vallaud-Belkacem spoke to various media outlets (as reported by Polygon), confirming that she intends to meet with Pokemon GO developer Niantic Labs to see if anything can be done.
Currently, one can request the removal of PokeStop’s or Gyms, but there is no guarantee Niantic will respond, nor would really that solve the problem of rare Pokemon appearing by schools.
Clearly, Vallaud-Belkacem isn’t being entirely unreasonable. She only singles out rare Pokemon as the ones she thinks should be removed from schools in France.
And can you blame her? Considering that France remains in a national state of emergency following November 2015’s terrorist attack, and the recent attack in Nice, it’s probably not the best time to have strangers wandering up to and around schools – even if they are only looking for imaginary monsters.
With the start of a new school year imminent, Pokemon GO is likely gonna be the big classroom distraction for a few months. Still, if it wasn’t Pokemon GO, we all know it’d be something else.
I wouldn’t worry about the Pokemon GO trend lasting too much longer though. Recent reports have found the craze is already dying off in a big way.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.