The education sector is probably one of the most dissatisfied with the mandate of Emmanuel Macron. After the health crisis, the streets of the country were filled with teachers and parents who criticized the change in health protocols and the lack of communication on the part of the Government. Now, education is one of the main issues on the candidates’ agenda.
2022 began with a convulsive panorama for education in France. A discontent shared by a large part of the educators of the Gallic country, led them to demonstrate in the streets. Thus, the month of January was marked by the education strike that denounced the changes in the health protocol by the Government of Emmanuel Macron.
According to the Ministry of National Education, as of January 13, 38.4% of primary school teachers and 23.7% of secondary school teachers joined the protest. At the same time, 11 teachers’ unions and parents’ organizations joined the strike.
At that time, the demonstrators expressed their disagreement with the lack of communication on the part of the Government, whom they also accused of taking contradictory measures.
The demands showed the fed up of the educational sector. One who claimed that President Emmanuel Macron had left them relegated. France was in the midst of a rebound in cases of Covid-19, derived from the omicron variant. Therefore, they also demanded greater security in the classrooms and better protection measures.
“Teachers were sent as cannon fodder at a time when there was a significant spike in Covid-19,” says Sebastian Taillefumier, a teacher at a public school in Paris.
Thus, the management of the health crisis by the president was the straw that overflowed the camel’s back on the management of education during Macron’s mandate. One that even led to a growing mistrust of that sector about the French Minister of Education and Youth.
However, there are many demands that are still pending in educational terms. Some that range from remuneration to lack of jobs and overcrowding.
What debts does Macron have with education?
Despite the relevance of education in France, teachers in that country are among the lowest paid in Europe. At the beginning of their careers they can earn 7% less than the OECD average. Therefore, one of the main demands of teachers is a salary increase.
At the same time, there is concern about the lack of staff in schools. One that is due, in part, to the fact that the “contests” that people seeking to become teachers must pass are not enough. According to Taillefumier, this has led to teachers who “are even in 3 or 4 schools because they don’t know how to distribute the hours correctly.”
This, he assures, leads to another fundamental problem and that is that the classes usually have a number of students that make learning difficult. “In the lycée (from tenth to twelve) this situation worsens, there are classes that exceed 30 students and can reach 40. That is something counterproductive for teachers and students,” he says.
Macron ensures a change
Now, shortly before the first round of the presidential elections, Macron is proposing a change in the way he has conducted education in recent years. The president promises a “great project” on education if he is re-elected.
“Today teachers do not feel sufficiently paid and recognized, families face absenteeism and are not satisfied, children lack confidence and we continue to have poor results,” says Macron.
The president also affirms that he will seek to give institutions more freedom to hire teaching staff and that he will offer salary increases to professors who accept new assignments. One of the proposals that has been most criticized by teachers, who see it as counterproductive.
Thus, Macron’s program provides for 6,000 million euros for the payroll of teachers from a budget of 12,000 million that will be allocated to youth and education, however an increase would be conditioned by these new tasks ranging from replacements to extracurricular hours. and more individualized support.
What do the candidates propose about education?
- Marine Le Pen: The leader of the ‘National Association’ will seek to make the school the main source of transmission of the history of France and its heritage. She intends to increase the number of class hours for primary school students and limit the number of students in primary school to 20 and to 30 in secondary school. She also wants to encourage “respect” for teachers through fines that will be applied if there are insults in the classroom at the same time as the installation of video protection in secondary school. She assures that there will be a 3% increase in salaries each year if she is elected.
- Nathalie Arthaud: The Trotskyist candidate will seek to create additional positions in the National Education system and prohibit private financing of higher education establishments.
- Nicolas Dupont-Aignan: The ‘Debout la France’ candidate wants to improve the teaching profession by increasing salaries by 20% initially and then an additional 20% in exchange for tutoring hours. He will also seek to create new new university residences with a decreasing access price based on resources.
- Anne Hidalgo: The socialist candidate assures that she will raise the remuneration of teachers. At the same time, she will promote open, inclusive and collaborative pedagogies. Hidalgo also promised that she will remove ‘Parcoursup’, a web application created by the French Ministry of Education to manage applications for university access, and replace it with “fairer and more humane rules for access to higher education.” The mayor of Paris also wants to give the possibility of working and studying alternately thanks to adapted schedules and programmes.
- Yannick Jadot: The environmentalist promises the hiring of at least 65,000 teachers and a 20% increase in their salaries. The candidate also proposes to put an end to the ‘Parcoursup’ for higher education for a transparent system so that no high school graduate is left “without enrolling in one of their desired courses.”
- Jean Lassalle: The main proposal of the candidate for ‘Resist!’ is to increase the salary of teachers, which he considers should be 2,181 euros. At the same time, he will seek to promote study programs that make it possible to approach digital tools, but also seeks to foster an approach to “concrete” and “artisanal” knowledge such as woodworking, ceramics, glass or sculpture.
- Jean Luc Mélenchon: the leftist candidate of ‘Unsubmissive France’ promises to guarantee “equality” in education, so he will work for a “real” and free public education. He also says that he will reduce the number of students in each class and seek to extend compulsory schooling to the age of 18. The leftist also wants to restore the national high school diploma and end the high school reforms. At the same time, he assures that he will end the ‘Parcoursup’ system and that for higher education he will improve the budget of universities and research centers.
- Valérie Pécresse: The candidate of ‘The Republicans’ will seek that schools prioritize learning French and mathematics in primary school. She wants to introduce a college entrance exam to validate basic skills. As for the teachers, Ella Pécresse promises a salary increase for those who accept additional tasks.
- Fabien Roussel: The communist candidate assures that he will increase the education budget by up to 45%, reaching 80,000 million euros. He will also seek to establish the right to schooling from the age of 2 and extend the school day to 27 hours per week in primary school and 32 in university. For teachers, he promises the hiring of 90,000 teachers and a salary increase of 30%. He also says that he will increase the higher education budget from 14 to 20 billion euros. He says that he will end the ‘Parcoursup’.
- Éric Zemmour: The far-right candidate for ‘Reconquest’ wants to create a Ministry of State for Knowledge and Transmission that will bring together public education, higher education and culture. He promises to combat the “ideologization” of children and that he will ban inclusive writing. He also affirms that he will promote discipline in schools with the creation of the figure of general supervisors who will be in charge of maintaining “school order.”
The political disconnection of young people, another edge of the elections
The creation of the ‘Elyze’ application, which seeks to “match” young people with different candidates and political projects in the manner of ‘Tinder’, is yet another example of the attempt to reconnect this sector of the population with politics.
Felipe Borda, a 24-year-old Colombian-French man who studied economics, assures that he has not followed the presidential campaigns, so he used the application three times to find out the percentage of the candidate that most closely matches his answers.
The disconnection from politics could be explained, according to Xavier Bretzner, a 24-year-old who graduated from the University of Strasbourg, because there is no candidate who stands out for fulfilling his interests. “Many French people, me too, don’t know who to vote for,” he says.
For her part, Fanny Bares, a 25-year-old who studied humanities in Nanterre in Île-de-France, states that “young people in France are quite well represented by the candidates, depending on what they are looking for, but I think that the issue of youth and especially students is not sufficiently represented. I think young people don’t feel supported, or not enough.”
The candidates are still not championing issues that interest youth, says Etienne Martin, a 25-year-old who studied business.
“Young people don’t feel fully represented because there are issues that young people care about like the environment that go beyond specific political parties,” he concludes.
Analysts say that this year’s elections could be marked by record abstention among people between 18 and 30 years old.
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