French teachers strike over Covid health protocols
Strikes by teachers and students are taking place throughout schools in France
Teachers in France are going on strike over what they say are inapplicable Covid health protocols in schools, and the lack of preparation they received for national tributes in schools to murdered teacher Samuel Paty, which took place on November 2.
Read more: 12 million French students remember teacher Samuel Paty
Strikes are taking place in schools in Ile-de-France, Roubaix in the north, and La Rochelle on the west coast, among other locations.
This follows student strikes in lycées earlier this week over insufficient health measures in schools.
Teachers protesting over multiple concerns
Grégory Thuizat, co-secretary for union Snes-FSU 93 in the Ile-de-France, told local news source Le Parisien: “Between the assassination of our colleague and the health crisis, we are out of breath.”
In Roubaix teachers at the collège and lycée Baudelaire are protesting in order to make sure “means to ensure aeration, limitations on social mixing and reinforced cleaning measures are effective”, as well as for surgical masks for teachers and students.
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Teachers in La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, are striking to reintroduce a rota system into schools that would see class sizes halved, local news source Sud-Ouest has reported.
Unions have been concerned for weeks
Some teaching unions have been voicing concerns for weeks already. Sophie Vénétitay secretary-general of Snes-FSU told new source AFP: “It is unacceptable that we returned to school in November using the same health measures as in September when the virus was circulating much less then.”
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She called for class sizes to be cut in half, cleaning agencies to be used for cleaning classrooms and ideas for ways to increase aeration in school buildings.
Valérie Pécresse, Ile-de-France Regional Council president, said she was concerned about “the tens of overpopulated lycées” in the Paris region.
Health Minister Olivier Véran has previously stated in an interview with news source the Journal du dimanche on October 31, that lycées may close if the transmission of the Covid-19 virus does not slow in France.
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