in Paris, the new Minister of National Education targeted by the slogans of the teachers’ demonstration

In the Parisian demonstration on Thursday, teachers largely targeted the new Minister of National Education, annoyed by her recent controversial outings.

Throughout France, teachers demonstrated on Thursday February 1st. The demands are numerous: salaries, working conditions, recruitment of teachers, number of students per class… In the Parisian procession, all the teachers’ anger is crystallized around the new Minister of Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castera .

“Oudea, get out of it”, “public money in public schools”, “Oudea-Castéra, gold medal for contempt”… The slogans were directly aimed at the minister, especially after her controversial comments on public schools. Guislaine David is co-general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the majority 1st degree union: “When we carry the school at arm’s length, when we have a large number of students, when we have to ensure because a teacher is absent and we distribute the students, with numbers of 30/32/33 students.. . We can’t do our job properly.”

The creation of level groups called into question

The joint general secretary of Snuipp-FSU also denounces the deterioration of the working environment: “Sometimes we also have classrooms that are not in good condition. We can clearly see that National Education, the public service, is degraded. And opposite we have a minister who tells us she prefers private schools. She puts her children in private school herself. So that’s something that really shocked the teachers.” The unions are asking for a full minister, for the moment, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra is also in charge of sports and the Olympic Games.

Another reason for the anger, the creation of level groups, a measure resulting from “clash of knowledge”, presented by Gabriel Attal, when he was still Minister of Education. Nicolas, mathematics teacher in Paris: “Forming level groups means labeling students from the 6th grade. A priori by operating like this, we will ensure that these students do not progress sufficiently and therefore the gap between the strongest and the weakest will increase.”

School nurses demand the creation of 15,000 positions

Also in the procession, school nurses. The Prime Minister promised them a bonus of 800 euros net. For Violane Mangin, national education nurse, this is not enough: “We have a shortfall of 1,000 euros compared to our colleagues in the hospital sector. So that makes up a little bit but it’s far from enough. We, at Snics-FSU, are asking for the creation of 15 000 nursing positions. Currently there is one nurse for 1,700 students, which is far from enough, especially given the increasing needs of students.” The major demand of teachers today is a salary increase: 300 euros more per month, without compensation.