France: Thousands demonstrate against education cuts

Participation on the demonstrations, coming after a series of well-spaced-out days of action organised by the trade unions since the beginning of September, was considerably down. On November 20, hundreds of thousands of teachers struck and demonstrated. On December 18, after mass demonstrations of high school students throughout France during weeks of protests, some 180,000 were on the streets.

Union leaders have attempted to explain the diminished support for the January 17 demonstration by asserting that people are reserving their fire until January 29. A day of action will be held then, organised by all the unions in protest at the effects of the recession: sackings, closures, declining living standards and cuts in the social services. The unions also claim that the government's decision to postpone reform of the high school curriculum and its reduction of teaching hours for key subjects and other minor concessions have dampened down the movement.

These claims attempt to cover for the fact that all the calls to action are organised by the unions as a means of letting off steam and wearing down the movement. The decision of the education unions to wait until January 17, and of the entire trade union confederations to delay a broader movement until January 29, was designed to isolate the growing high school movement.