French schoolteachers and university students staged nationwide strikes and protests on Tuesday 26 January 2021 as they joined forces to demand more government support amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No virus protocol, no school!” read posters carried by schoolteachers, demanding better virus protections at their schools, which have remained open since September 2020 amid concern over learning gaps and to ease the burden on working parents.
“Sick of Zoom!” chanted university students, frustrated that they've been barred from campuses since October. One placard said "Se lever pour un Zoom. C'est
Aside from virus fears, the common concern at Tuesday's protests in Paris, Marseille and other cities around France, was economic. Teachers’ unions, who are negotiating with the government for improved conditions, want higher salaries and for the government to hire more educators after years of cost cuts. It is estimated that teachers have lost an average of 275 euros per month in purchasing power over the past decade.
Other protesters stressed the need to hire more supply teachers, noting that colleagues are seldom replaced when they fall sick.
The education ministry said about 12% of teachers nationwide took part in Tuesday's strike, though unions said the figure was higher.
Students, meanwhile, are seeking more government financial support and want to call attention to emotional troubles among young people cut off from friends, professors, and job opportunities amid the pandemic. With French universities in limbo amid the latest resurgence in COVID-19 infections, concerns are increasing over the social, psychological, and academic consequences of months of lockdowns, curfews and online teaching for students holed up in cramped dwellings many can’t afford.
Acknowledging their concerns last week, President Emmanuel Macron said that students would be allowed to return to campus one day a week, provided that lecture halls and classrooms don’t exceed 20% capacity. Macron also said he would look to ensure that all students have access to one-euro meals twice a day at university cafeterias, as well as psychological support free of charge.
While welcoming the measures, student unions want more financial support and a return to the rotating scheme that was in place before the country’s second nationwide lockdown, with students alternating between online and classroom teaching.
UNEF, France's largest student union, has called for a 1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) emergency plan to boost grants and help students pay for accommodation.
Regus, a workspace company, conducted a poll of professional workers in relation to Zoom and video conference calls. Video calls are the future said 44% of respondents, while 23% said they can take them or leave them, 23% were bored with them, and 10% said that nothing had changed and they weren’t affected by them.
MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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