Continuing strife in the public education system

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March 1999 saw continuing protests against reforms in the French public education system, including a demonstration on 20 March, which brought together groups calling (unsuccessfully) for the resignation of Education Minister Claude Allègre. The current protest movement is seen by some as an important crossroads for certain developments in French society and the education system, while it has also focused attention on changes in the trade union movement.

Since 1997, the French public education system has been undergoing a shake-up, with a series of initiatives affecting schools at all levels and higher education. The process has been punctuated by a number of industrial disputes and, most recently, a string of protest movements against proposed reforms has developed since autumn 1998 (FR9902161N). Factors in this latest wave of conflict have included cuts in pay rates for overtime and discontent with the government policy of job freezes in the public sector accompanied by the creation of large numbers of subsidised jobs for young people in public education. A particular target for anger has been the Minister for Education, Claude Allègre, who is seen by some education workers to have played a particularly provocative role. The protest movement has seen the emergence of rank-and-file "anti-Allègre committees" (comités anti-Allègre) and "schools in struggle coordinating committees" (coordinations des établissements en lutte).

The third week in March appeared to be a "make or break" moment for Minister Allègre. He had to deal with four different initiatives, including a demonstration on 20 March. This was supposed to be the rallying point for all anti-Allègre groups, but did not reap the hoped-for success, despite the fact that trade unions and groups participating in the demonstration had a single common denominator: the demand for the Minister's resignation.

The sudden prominence of the anti-Allègre committees and coordinating committees has given the impression that the unions have been unable to cope with the dynamism of these ad hoc movements. These provisional groups contain both union members and anti- trade unionists, linked sporadically by total opposition to both the policies and the personality of the Minister, who are critical of unions' "lethargy" and divisions. These committees and groups are essentially Paris-based, comprising a few hundred people inspired by a long, hard industrial dispute in the primary and secondary schools in the Seine-Saint-Denis départementin 1998. The trade union organisations that are formally part of these groups, which represent a small minority of workers, take essentially ideological positions. They claim to be fighting against the fragmentation of the trade union movement, which some observers believe that they themselves are fuelling.

For some commentators, the current period of mobilisation represents a crossroads for a number of significant trends in the development of French society, the education system, and the groups concerned themselves. Current changes affecting the system of production, tensions over professional qualifications, high unemployment and the growth of under-employment and "atypical" forms of employment are seen to have raised doubts over the role of the teacher, and the profession is experiencing a crisis in the way its role in society is represented. Worried by the doubts clouding their future (in terms of their work, careers, pensions, etc), they appear to be clinging onto what seems most important to them: academic knowledge. This crisis, which has been brewing for several years, has arguably been fuelled by ministerial statements deemed unacceptable by the teaching profession, and the absence of extra funding to implement proposed reforms.

Changes in the French trade union movement have had an impact on organisations representing public education workers. The Federation of National Education (Fédération de l'Education Nationale, FEN) - which was by far the most representative organisation in education until the 1992 split which created the Unitary Trade Union Federation (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire, FSU) - was founded on the idea of remaining independent after the 1948 split between CGT and CGT-FO. Today, it is more difficult to maintain this basis for organisation. This is because: the collapse of the old regimes in Central and Eastern Europe has questioned the political basis of such "independence"; there is little space available for the several union organisations which claim to be independent; and the emergence of joint action by CGT and CFDT (FR9902154F) has completely transformed the union landscape, and may marginalise unions operating in only one area of occupational activity, especially those confined to the civil service.

With regard to this last point, all the unions are carefully watching the way their territory is being affected by the continuing changes. This is true for the teachers' unions within the larger intersectoral confederations - CFDT, CGT, CGT-FO - and for FEN, which is heavily involved in the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA). In the wake of the unexpected resignation of its general secretary, Michel Deschamps, FSU, now the majority union among teachers at all levels, is experiencing a crisis of succession, which has also uncovered strategic differences within the union over which model of union activity to adopt.