Late 2002 saw a number of protests against job losses in France's state education system, along with important elections of employee representatives on various joint committees, which provide a significant gauge of the support for the sector's many trade unions.
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Late 2002 saw a number of protests against job losses in France's state education system, along with important elections of employee representatives on various joint committees, which provide a significant gauge of the support for the sector's many trade unions.
Since the current conservative government came to office in 2002, the first policies enacted by the ministers responsible for the state education system, Luc Ferry and Xavier Darcos, have dealt with basic reading writing and arithmetic skills, and have also involved the loss of 6,000 jobs among classroom assistants and security staff. The trade union response has mainly taken the form of local actions, though a national strike and demonstration was held on 17 October 2002 (FR0211106F), organised by the United Union Federation (Fédération syndicale unitaire autonome, FSU), the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA) and the Independent National Education Federation (Fédération autonome de l’Education nationale, FAEN).
The same unions repeated their action on 8 December 2002, this time with support from parents' and students' organisations - the Federation of Pupils' Parents Councils (Fédération des conseils de parents d’élèves des écoles publiques, FCPE), the Independent and Democratic College Federation (Fédération indépendante et démocratique lycéenne, FIDL), the National College Union (Union nationale lycéenne, UNL) and the French National Union of Students (Union nationale des étudiants de France, UNEF). However, the anxieties expressed by the staff in question, along with public opinion, seem to be focused more on the future of collèges (which provide the first four years of secondary education) and more generally on government decisions affecting civil service pension schemes. To sum up, current events in education do not compare with the situation in 1999-2000, when large-scale mobilisations against the policies of the then Minister for Education in the Socialist-led government, Claude Allègre, took place during a consultation exercise over reform with teaching staff (FR9903170N and FR0004153N).
On 3 December 2002, the 767,045 teachers, assistant teachers and student counsellors with civil servant status in primary schools, collèges and lycées (which provide the last three years of secondary education) elected their representatives on the state education sector's joint administrative committees (commissions administratives paritaires, CAPs). These elections, combined with those for representatives of non-teaching staff , are a measure of the degree to which the various trade unions enjoy overall support, and are used as the basis for the distribution of seats within the various ministerial consultative bodies, such as the Higher Education Council (Conseil supérieur de l’éducation, CSE), and joint technical committees at various levels across the country. The results of these elections are also taken into account when allocating seats in the senior civil service councils.
The 66.25% turn-out in the December 2002 elections constituted a sizeable 3.15 percentage point drop from the 1999 figure (FR0001128N), but was nevertheless substantial. A high turn-out is facilitated by holding direct voting in primary and secondary schools.
The FSU teachers' federation (FR0102126N) is still far and away the most popular organisation, winning 44.83% of the vote in 2002, down 3.92%. However, the fall in its support, the first since it was founded in 1992, is significant, even though it is partly explained by the departure from FSU of the National Union for Technical Education and Independent Apprenticeship (Syndicat national des enseignements techniques et de l'apprentissage autonome, SNETAA) (FR0004153N), which obtained 3.9% of all votes in the state education system. However, FSU's vote rose among non-teaching staff and the union fared well with teachers in higher education.
UNSA (15.03% of the vote, down 3.78 points) continued to lose support among teachers. However, it has retained a strong position with non-teaching staff. Its scores varied widely from primary to secondary level education, where UNSA has a strong presence only among PEGC staff (a special category of collège teachers).
The CFDT vote stabilised at 11.33% (down 0.32 points), falling less dramatically than in previous elections. Its vote was higher among teachers and non-teaching staff in universities, and in research and higher education institutes and libraries, but was weak among the non-teaching staff in schools.
The unions affiliated to the General Confederation of Labour-Force Ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO) saw their vote fall clearly (7.04%, down 0.61 points). They lost almost the same percentage as that gained by the Union Confederation of National Education (Confédération syndicale de l’éducation nationale, CSEN) (5.94%, up 0.64 points), which is considered close to the current government.
Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (Solidaires unitaires et démocratiques, SUD) Education (4.60%, up 1.45 points) did well despite a very uneven vote. It is the only union that can genuinely claim to have made progress. CGT is most strongly represented in the lycées professionnels (vocational colleges), hence its relative weakness in the overall results (3.39%, up 0.54 points).
FAEN is the successor to the former National Collèges Union (Syndicat national des colleges, SNC), which represented only PEGC staff (see above). Its vote - at 2.44% (up 0.32 points) - reflects its negligible presence outside the collèges.
In the state education system, the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff-General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC) with 0.87% of the vote (up 0.24 points) - and the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) - 0.82% (up 0.11 points) - are extremely marginal unions.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2003), Protests and elections in state education, article.
