French teachers strike for better pay, conditions

By Hafsa Alami

PARIS (AA) - Several thousand teachers have taken to the street in Paris from Place Edmond Rostand, in the 6th arrondissement, to reach the National Education Ministry.

Sending "a warning to the government that remains deaf,” protesters on Thursday denounced the lack of interest and the way public schools are treated and the low wages of teachers.

There have been also criticisms against Education Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera when she claimed she had put her children into a private school because of “loads of hours with no proper replacement teacher” at her son’s public primary school.

Mathieu Moreau, a professor and secretary of the union CGT Educ’action 95, told Anadolu that he denounced the choice of “a part-time minister,” describing Oudea-Castera as “disconnected from reality.”

Also a former junior tennis champion, the new minister was handed the education brief on top of her sports portfolio earlier this month, just months before the Paris Olympics.

“It’s been more than 10 years since I last demonstrated for my job. In the last few weeks, this has been the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I want people to respect my profession,” Elodie, a teacher in Paris told Anadolu.

“The head of the establishment in the public schools does not have the power to replace absent teachers, even if it is a legitimate absence. And I think no woman in France would want to have her maternity leave taken away and deprived of her right,” she said.

“After all, we must understand that teachers are not robots, they have the right to be well paid and to be absent because they have maternity or paternity leave or simply because they are sick,” Elodie added.

The secondary school union FSU-SNUipp said 65% of teachers in Parisian schools were on strike and at least 130 schools were completely closed on the day of the mobilization on Thursday.

This has been the strongest mobilization since protests against former Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer in 2022.