In Budapest, the Franco-Hungarian high school at the forefront of the mobilization against Orban

She can no longer walk the streets of Budapest without the Hungarians expressing their support. At 53, Katalin Törley has just lost the post of French teacher she has held for twenty-three years at the Ferenc-Kölcsey high school, a magnificent and very renowned establishment in the center of the Magyar capital which delivers a bilingual Franco-Hungarian baccalaureate. Her brutal dismissal, which occurred on October 5, created such a shock in Hungary that she became one of the main figures of the sling which has shaken the Hungarian education system for several months against the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban.

Her fault and that of the four other teachers from the same high school who, like her, were fired? Have coordinated a movement of ” civil disobedience “, the only way to circumvent a right to strike recently reduced to the bare minimum. They organized wild walkouts to demand salary increases and more educational freedom in the face of ideological pressures from power.

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“We put ourselves in a target position, it’s undeniable”, loose Katalin Törley, with some satisfaction. Jovial, glasses on her head, she taught the language of Molière in this high school which she attended during her youth and of which she claims “the spirit of freedom”. “We, the French teachers, are particularly active, she observes. Perhaps because we know what the reactions are in France as soon as we touch the school system. »

This seasoned activist, who takes care of part-time tutoring for young Roma, is not at her first attempt. As early as 2016, Katalin Törley had launched a vast movement of teachers to demand more educational freedom in the face of a power “which advocates an education worthy of the 19e century with brainwashing rather than the construction of critical minds”.

On the evening of his dismissal, 35,000 people took to the streets to express their anger at the five dismissals, decided by the rectorate in the name of the “endangering the right to education of students”. This crowd, unprecedented since the triumphant victory of Viktor Orban during the April legislative elections, was mainly made up of high school students who were not even 18 years old. “No teacher, no future”, they chanted under the windows of Parliament.

Katalin Törley, one of the dismissed teachers.

Last winter, taking the Covid-19 as a pretext, the Hungarian government introduced a minimum service obliging in particular the striking teachers to ensure the reception of their pupils in class. What make any strike de facto almost invisible. In his new government, Viktor Orban has also decided not to appoint a Minister of Education, entrusting the management of this portfolio to the… Minister of the Interior.

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