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After a massive strike last week, the education sector is mobilizing once more in France
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The management of covid-19, the precariousness of the profession and the attitude of Minister Blanquer fuel indignation
A stone in the shoe Emmanuel Macron when there are less than three months left for the presidential elections. The French president faces an incipient social front before the Persistent malaise in the education sector. After the mass strike on January 13, the teachers have mobilized once more this Thursday with a new day of protests and have already announced another for next week.
Despite a clearly lower follow-up compared to last week – then they went on strike Come in 75% of teachers, according to the unions, and 38.5%, according to the Ministry of Education-, the continuity of the mobilizations reflects that the concessions made by the government They haven’t completely calmed down. indignation by management of the health crisis in the classroom.
The “chaotic” situation following the back to school of January 3 “has been the drop of water that has filled the glass“, assures EL PERIÓDICO Nelson Niermann, a German teacher at an institute near Nancy who supports the protests. The multiplication of cases due to omicron – on Wednesday there were 465,000 positives in France – has made it almost an epic to teach a class under normal conditions.
Controversial holidays in Ibiza
The way the minister Jean-Michel Blanquer announced the new protocols in An interview published on Sunday followingnoon in a private medium, a few hours before the return to schools, has already outraged the workers in the sector. The measures, moreover, were Kafkaesque and difficult to comply with. changed three times in a week. And to that was added the recent controversy over Blanquer’s vacations in Ibiza, where he prepared these erratic protocols.
This trip “has been shocking to public opinion for what it symbolizes being in Ibiza at a time when parents and teachers were being asked to make great efforts to keep the centers open,” says Rodrigo Arenas, a member of the FCPE, the main parents’ association. A group of activists did on Wednesday for the night one’performance’ dancing in a swimsuit in front of the Ministry of Education, in an image that recalls the burlesque actions last week in front of Downing Street. Although Blanquer’s trip is not comparable to the British Prime Minister’s party, Boris Johnson, the French Executive would have preferred to avoid this controversy at a time when its image is being degraded by the management of the pandemic.
PARIS – Action in progress before the Ministry of National Education.
Activists parody @jmblanquer at #Ibiza while the #COVID19 circulating in schools. #Greve20January pic.twitter.com/WYSsf0KNCy
– Clement Lanot (@ClementLanot) January 19, 2022
“Among the lowest paid”
After the massive strike last week, the Government announced the distribution of five million FFP2 masks in the centers and the hiring of 3,300 substitute teachers. “We are organizing things better,” Blanquer defended Tuesday in the National Assembly. “The Prime Minister, Jean Castex, promised us more masks, but we have not received anything,” laments Niermann, who is skeptical regarding the Executive’s willingness to recruit retired students or teachers as replacements. “The situation has hardly improved. The centers are open, but the classrooms are half empty,” criticizes Frederic Bezanilla, a secondary school teacher at a high school in the Bordeaux area.
In addition to the difficult situation in the classrooms due to the pandemic -France is one of the European countries that has kept schools open for the longest time-, the discomfort of teachers is also due to the precariousness of the profession. “We are among the lowest paid in Europe. 25 years ago, a teacher’s salary was equivalent to 2.4 times the minimum wage, now it is only 1.3 times,” explains Bezanilla.
Nor did they like in this sector the numerous reforms promoted by Blanquer, among them a profound reorganization of the high school very difficult to implement in recent years. “It’s regarding a feeling of contempt general. It is not new, but it has been accentuated by the way in which the minister tries to introduce new pedagogical methods without taking into account the experience and skills of teachers”, highlights André D. Robert, professor emeritus at Lyon-II university and specialist in protest movements in the educational sector.
Criticisms of Macron
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In the midst of this tense context, some controversial statements by Macron regarding the university have not sat well. “We cannot continue for a long time with a higher education system that has no price for almost all students, in which a third of them receive scholarships, but there is so much student precariousness and we have so much difficulty financing it“, declared the president last Thursday, the same day of the strike. “When he says that we cannot maintain a system in which the university has almost no cost, this means that he is an increase in rates or even privatization,” criticizes Mélanie Luce, president of the UNEF, one of the main student unions.
Despite taking place less than three months before the presidential elections, Professor Robert does not believe that these mobilizations in the educational sector “have a big impact” in the elections of April 10 and 24. “The political opinion of teachers is usually located on the left (…) and the current state of fragmentation of the progressive forces means that it will hardly have an electoral translation,” says this expert.
