(Paris) The mobilization promises to be massive: teachers in France, exasperated by the waltz of health protocols linked to the COVID-19 epidemic, are called to a strike on Thursday, which should lead to the closure of half of the schools.
Posted at 12:02 am
All the teachers’ unions have called a strike in schools, colleges and high schools. They denounce “an indescribable mess” in schools – and especially schools – because of the fifth epidemic wave and the health protocols it involves.
“The government announces things, but we do not think about what this means for the personnel on the ground: it is hellish what we are asked and therefore it is going to ruin”, testified this week Olivier Flipo, director of a school in the Paris region.
Since returning to class after the Christmas holidays, schools have been living to the rhythm of a new health protocol which requires a multiplication of tests.
Students are now subjected to three tests in four days if there is a positive in the class: an antigen or PCR on the day of the announcement of the COVID-19 case, with certificate to be given to the school, then self-tests to do at home on D + 2 and D + 4.
A complicated device, while the cases are multiplying leading to the closure of thousands of classes, among the 527,000 in France.
According to forecasts from Snuipp-FSU, the leading union in primary education, 75% of primary school teachers may not pass through the school gate on Thursday, half of which should therefore be closed.
The union organization evokes “a historic mobilization by its magnitude over the last twenty years”. This “is not a strike against the virus, but it illustrates the growing fed-up in schools,” said the union, referring to the words of Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, who had spoken of ‘a “strike against the virus”.
The call to strike was launched by almost all of the unions. And for once, this movement has received the support of parents’ associations and the union of school leaders.
In France, the average daily COVID-19 contamination over the last seven days is 287,603 cases, against 198,200 a week ago.