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Teachers' strike in France: anger is directed against Education Minister Michel Blanquer
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ERIC GAILLARD / REUTERS
They are dissatisfied with the government's crisis management in French schools: numerous teachers have gathered for demonstrations in several cities across the country and have stopped working.
"Exhaustion and despair of the entire educational community have reached unprecedented levels," said a joint statement by eleven unions that had called for a strike.
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer and the government created a chaotic situation, it said.
The requirements for the protection of students and staff have been constantly changed.
In addition, there is a lack of suitable instruments to ensure that schools run smoothly.
There is also a lack of measures to protect health.
"We were so desperate, tired and angry"
In contrast to previous strikes, this time almost all unions have allied themselves.
They are also supported by parents' associations.
About two thirds of the teaching staff at secondary levels I and II took part in the labor dispute, according to the SNES-FSU union.
For the pre-schools and primary schools, the SNUipp-FSU union assumed that three out of four teachers would take part.
The anger is particularly directed against the back and forth with the corona rules in the past few weeks. On the last day before returning from the Christmas holidays, Blanquer announced in a newspaper interview that classes should no longer be sent home completely, even if there were several positive cases.
There was also a lot of criticism when parents of schoolchildren had been fetched from work in a row during the day in the past few days to have their children tested in a pharmacy - which was often only possible with long waiting times. With a negative test, the children were then allowed to go back to class. After a strong protest, self-tests and a written declaration from the parents about the test result should now be sufficient from Friday. In contrast to Germany, France has never introduced regular tests for schoolchildren.
The unions are calling for, among other things, simpler regulations, the employment of auxiliary teachers and the postponement of the Abitur exams from March to June.
"We were so desperate, tired and angry that we had no choice but to organize a strike to send a clear message to the government," said Elisabeth Allain-Moreno of the teachers' union SE-UNSA.
In turn, after the rapid school closings at the beginning of the pandemic, the government is now relying on maintaining face-to-face classes for as long as possible.
Blanquer: "A strike does not solve any problems"
A certain amount of difficulty is the price, Blanquer countered the strikers: “I know it's tough, but a strike doesn't solve any problems.
You don't strike against a virus, ”he told BFM TV.
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal at least admitted that not everything had run smoothly in the end.
But he defended the new rules: Currently only two percent of the classes are closed.
With the previous rules, it would be significantly more in view of the high number of cases.
School closings are to be prevented at all costs.
With the recent rapid increase in the number of infections in France in the course of the spread of the omicron variant, the number of infections in schools has also increased significantly.
The authorities had recently reported a daily high of almost 370,000 new infections.
Fok / AFP / dpa / Reuters
