Zoé Pallier, edited by Gauthier Delomez
, modified to
07:19, January 14, 2022
Teachers and other National Education staff, exasperated by the waltz of health protocols linked to Covid-19, went on massive strike on Thursday and demonstrated to demand progress from the government, which promised them FFP2 masks and substitutes.
At the end of this day of strike, the teachers’ unions were received by Prime Minister Jean Castex. After three hours and thirty minutes of a meeting in which the Minister of Health Olivier Véran also participated by videoconference and the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, the latter announced the provision of “five million masks FFP2” for kindergarten teachers on request, and the distribution of surgical masks from the beginning of next week for education staff.
3,300 additional contractors
He also promised “several thousand” replacements “to deal with the crisis”, with the recruitment of “3,300 more contract workers” and the use of additional lists, that is to say candidates who had the competitions but have not been recruited, a long-standing demand of the unions. Faced with the disruption caused by the health crisis, the evaluations of “mid-CP”, which were to start next week, will be “postponed to a deadline which remains to be defined”.
As for the baccalaureate specialty exams, which normally take place in March, the minister indicated that he was going to “make an analysis again with the representative organizations” to “see if it is appropriate to have a postponement of these exams from March to June. “We have made concrete progress. Now, actions must follow,” Guislaine David, general secretary of Snuipp-FSU, the first primary school union, told AFP after the meeting. “It does not answer everything but we see that we did not strike for nothing,” she added.
“Stronger answers”, welcome the unions
“The tone has changed, it is the result of the strong mobilization of the day”, also welcomed Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first secondary union. “We will judge on the spot”. “We have more solid answers, notched by the Prime Minister”, added Stéphane Crochet, secretary general of SE-Unsa, while the holding of bimonthly meetings with the trade unions was also decided on Thursday. The tension had risen before this day of mobilization, with a Minister of Education once a good student of the government and today in turmoil.
Nearly 78,000 people (77,500) demonstrated in France on Thursday, including 8,200 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior, at the call of all the national education unions, who denounced “an indescribable mess” in due to health protocols.
38.5% of strikers for the ministry, 75% for the unions
Nearly 38.5% of teachers went on strike in nursery and elementary schools, according to the Ministry of Education, and 75% according to the SNUipp-FSU, which announced one in two schools closed and referred to “a mobilization historical”. In colleges and high schools, 23.7% of teachers were mobilized, according to the ministry. The Snes-FSU advanced the figure of 62% of strikers.
In Paris, teachers but also other National Education staff, nurses, school life staff or, more rarely, inspectors and heads of establishments marched in the procession, in which left-wing candidates also took part. Presidential Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Anne Hidalgo and Christiane Taubira.
The “exasperation” of protocol changes
“It’s exhaustion, exasperation after 22 months of health crisis, incessant changes that we can sometimes understand, but we need better communication”, explained to AFP Bruno Bobkiewicz, general secretary of the main union. headteachers (SNPDEN). “Three protocols in ten days is nonsense. We lie to parents, because it is a daycare center that is currently open”, testified Anne Gau-Segonzac, 59, director of an elementary school in Montrouge. (Hauts-de-Seine).
In Lyon, the demonstration brought together more than 3,000 demonstrators according to the unions, 2,200 according to the police. “The directors are exhausted, the assistants are lost, we no longer understand the protocols, we are fed up with teaching in these conditions”, summed up Julie Merlin, 28, a kindergarten teacher for two years at Venissieux.
A few thousand demonstrators in major cities
In Bordeaux, where some 3,000 people demonstrated according to the organizers, 1,900 according to the prefecture, demonstrators hung on the grids of the rectorate the fabric masks provided by the National Education on which they wrote messages like “Blanquer resign”. Around 2,000 demonstrators marched in Montpellier according to the prefecture, and 1,500 in Lille, behind a banner “If the school coughs, the Republic chokes”. In Rennes, they were 4,500 according to the organizers (2,200 according to the police) and in Marseille, where the posters “closed school” were numerous on the doors of the establishments, 2,200 according to the police.
Beyond the education professionals, the high school student movements FIDL, MNL and La Voix lycéenne, as well as the FCPE, the first organization of parents of students, had joined the mobilization, and parents showed their support for the strike. “I understand the exasperation of the teachers”, assured Carine, a mother of a student, in front of an elementary school in the north-east of Paris. “It’s true that it’s painful, I understand that the staff are fed up”, also believes François Lordenimus, parent of a student from Caluire-et-Cuire (Rhône).