French teachers stand up to the continuous changes in covid protocol

National strike of teachers in France against “the political virus” that infects teaching. Teachers protested this Thursday throughout the country against the management of the covid-19 health crisis and the “chaos” caused by the continuous changes in health protocol in educational centers. And they demanded the resignation of the French Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer. There was a dance of numbers. The strike was supported by 75% of primary school teachers and 62% of secondary school teachers, according to the unions, which announced half of the schools closed. Instead, the Ministry of Education said that there were only 38.5% of strikers in primary and 27.73% in secondary.

Around 77,500 people demonstrated across the country, 8,200 of them in Paris, according to the Interior Ministry, which recorded 136 demonstrations across France. «Blanker, resignation. Blanquer, resign, ”shouted numerous teachers in the demonstration that toured the central boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris.

Many of the banners they carried made reference to a phrase that the Minister of Education pronounced and that made this group feel very bad. “There is no strike against a virus,” Blanquer, one of the heavyweights of macronismo, said this week. “We do not strike against a virus. We strike against Blanquer”, read the banner of a teacher at the École Alsacienne, a highly prestigious private secular school in Paris.

“The ‘blanquerovirus’ seriously harms the health of the school,” another protester warned. “On strike against the Blancron virus,” added another, making a play on words with the surnames of Blanquer and the president, Emmanuel Macron. Less than a hundred days before the French presidential elections and in an attempt to calm things down, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that he would meet this Thursday afternoon with the teachers’ unions after the strike day. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, participated by videoconference, after testing positive for covid-19.

The teachers had the support of the union of directors of educational centers and several associations of parents of students in their protest. Several leftist candidates – socialist Anne Hidalgo, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La Francia Insumisa and communist Fabien Roussel – turned out for the Paris rally to express their support.

“It does not protect us”

Teachers, parents of students and directors of schools and institutes denounced that, in eight days, there have been three different health protocols from the French Government to deal with the wave of infections by the omicron variant in the centers.

“The virus of national education is him, Jean-Michel Blanquer, who since he has been there despises us with a protocol that does not protect,” Chloé, a primary school teacher, explained to this newspaper. This teacher complained that the minister announced the new health protocol in schools on Sunday, January 2, in a paid press article, a few hours before going back to school on the 3rd, instead of informing them beforehand so that They could be better organized. And then they changed it back.

This 27-year-old Parisian teacher lamented that not all students were required to take a negative test before returning to class after the Christmas holidays, which, according to her, has triggered infections. “Let’s continue to be positive, but not in covid,” asked another teacher’s banner.