Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

French teachers walk out of classrooms in strike over Covid strategy

French teachers walk out of classrooms in strike over Covid strategy

Tens of thousands take part in one-day strike, one of the biggest in the sector in recent years

French teachers have held one of the biggest education strikes in recent years, forcing the closure of hundreds of primary schools in protest at the government’s handling of Covid-19 measures in the education sector.

Tens of thousands of teachers took part in the one-day strike. Trade unions said 75% of primary teachers walked out alongside 62% of secondary teachers. The education ministry gave much lower figures on Thursday morning, saying there was an average of 38.5% of teachers on strike in primary schools, and just under 24% in high schools. Teachers and education support staff joined a protest march through the centre of Paris to the education ministry, and others demonstrated in towns across France.

The French prime minister, Jean Castex, announced he would meet teachers’ union representatives late on Thursday in an attempt to calm the anger.

“We had reached such a level of exasperation, tiredness, and anger that we didn’t have any other option but to organise a strike to send a strong message to the government,” said Elisabeth Allain-Moreno, national secretary of the SE-Unsa teachers’ union.

Laurent Berger, secretary general of the CFDT union, said: “This is not a strike against the virus, it’s a strike against the lack of consultation.” He said teachers had been treated with “disdain”, only informed of changing Covid protocols at the last minute, and there should be more “dialogue”.

President Emmanuel Macron this week restated the government view that one of France’s greatest successes during the pandemic had been to keep schools open more than any other country in the world. “I fundamentally believe the choice that we made to keep schools open is the right choice,” he said.

“France is the country that kept its schools open the most,” the education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, has said.

But a surge in Covid infections, driven by a sharp rise in the highly contagious Omicron variant, has created major disruption in schools since they reopened at the start of January – with about 10,000 classes closed because of infections among pupils and staff.


Parents and children have faced long and often bewildering queues outside pharmacies to be tested in order to keep up with the requirements for pupils in a class where there has been a positive case. Testing rules for children have changed several times since the start of January. Castex finally announced this week that a series of home tests could now be used to determine whether a student can return to school.

Children over the age of six must wear masks in French schools.

Teaching unions said the government was failing children with a disorganised approach that provided inadequate protection against infection for staff and students alike, and failed to ensure replacement cover for teachers falling ill while leaving schools acting as a form of test-and-trace managers.

“Students cannot learn properly because attendance varies wildly, and a hybrid of in-house and distance learning is impossible to put in place,” the SNUipp-FSU said, adding that absent teachers were not being replaced.

Unions are also demanding the government provides the more protective FFP2 face masks for staff, and CO2 monitors to check whether classrooms are sufficiently ventilated.

“Not only does the current protocol not protect students, staff or their families, it has completely disorganised schools,” the union said, claiming that classes have effectively been turned into “daycare centres”.

In a rare move, France’s largest parents’ group, the FCPE, supported the strike, encouraging parents to keep their children home on Thursday. The group said France needed more saliva testing within schools, rather than lateral flow tests at home; a proper strategy to ensure distance learning; and to replace absent teachers. “Just keeping the school’s doors open isn’t enough,” Rodrigo Arenas, the co-president of the FCPE, told Le Monde.

Valérie Pécresse, a key challenger to Macron in this spring’s presidential election race from the rightwing Les Républicains party, accused the government of disorder and chaos, saying it would have been better to defer the start of the January term to allow schools to prepare and to slow transmission rates.

Blanquer argued this week that the government was doing everything possible to avoid outright school closures that could cause havoc for parents and jeopardise learning for thousands of children, especially those from low-income families. “I know there is a lot of fatigue, of anxiety … but you don’t go on strike against a virus,” he said in a TV interview.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×