PARIS (AFP) - Huge numbers of French teachers went on strike Thursday, with the biggest teachers’ union saying half of primary schools were closed as staff demand clarity from the government on coronavirus measures.
Late on Tuesday, after Prime Minister Jean Castex hosted union leaders, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer promised some five million high-grade FFP2 masks would be made available mainly to kindergarten teachers and several thousand substitute staff recruited to help ‘face the crisis’.
Coming as France’s presidential election campaign gets under way ahead of an April vote, the walkout is awkward for President Emmanuel Macron’s government which has prided itself on keeping schools open to ease pressure on parents through the pandemic.
Tens of thousands also took to the streets, with the interior ministry saying almost 78,000 teachers and other education workers protested nationwide, including 8,200 in Paris.
While the education ministry said almost 40 percent of primary school teachers had walked out, top union Snuipp put the figure at 75 percent with one primary school in two closed for the day.
The strike “demonstrates the growing despair in schools”, Snuipp said in a Tuesday statement announcing the strike.
They complain that their members are unable to teach properly, are not adequately protected against coronavirus infection and frequently hear about changes to health precautions via the media rather than from higher-ups.
“The government announces things, but no-one thinks about what it means for staff on the ground,” Olivier Flipo, the head of a Paris school, told AFP this week.
“They’re asking hellish things of us and it’s all going to the dogs”.
With many pupils off sick and difficulty combining distance learning with in-person classes, “it’s not school that’s open, but a kind of ‘daycare’,” Snuipp said.
Macron’s presidential election challengers have seized on the walkout, with far-left and Socialist candidates Jean-Luc Melenchon and Anne Hidalgo joining marchers in Paris.
The acting party chief of the far-right National Rally Jordan Bardella said the strike showed “the problem above all is Emmanuel Macron”.
Motivated by long queues for tests outside pharmacies, the government this week eased rules on COVID checks for students who have been exposed to an infected person, with Prime Minister Jean Castex announcing the changes on Monday’s evening news.