A picture of unrest and discontent in French universities

Article published: Saturday, May 30th 2009

Mule correspondant in France Ruth Michaelson looks at the recently ended lecturers’ strikes which shook Universities and examines their impact

Vive la grève? Hardly… 

 

As any Francophile will tell you, displays of public discontent
against the government have been conspicuous recently. This year has already
witnessed two days of general strikes, muted somewhat by a minimum
service requirement law for certain public services which forces many
public sector workers to choose between striking or breaking the law
and risk losing their jobs. The nucleus of this tension however has
been within the higher education system, an area with a long history of
dissent, where strikes that began in early February have only just come
to a close.  

 

The Sarkozy governments planned overhaul of the education system is
threefold. The first concerns the qualification required to become a
professor, with a simple masters degree being proposed to replace the
current three-year program which combines lectures with government
sponsored work placements.  It is the high cost
of such placements which has influenced the proposals yet the proposals are viewed by many in the profession as falling beneath current
standards. Secondly, the reforms would change the requirements of the
professors interaction with students. Their primary task would be
research and not teaching, a model underpinned by a negative incentive
system whereby time spent in classrooms would be regarded as a form of
punishment for not having completed enough research. Finally the
so-called Pécresse law, named after the education minister who
instigated it, proposed to increase the autonomy of universities by
allowing them to procure finance from private sources, choose the cost
of attendance fees currently the same across the country to encourage
equality of access as well as radically reduce the role of students
in the policy formation of institutions.  

 

Opposition to the reforms has been remarkable in that the strikes
were led by the teachers unions (in conjunction with the
administrative workersunion) and supported by students; indeed, it was
this concerted and joint effort and which allowed them to continue for
so long. Attempts to involve private sector institutions such as
Sciences Po, Pariss largest political science institution of which the
director Richard Descoings is an advisor to the government on higher
education, proved less successful. Yet an initial source of energy for
the movement was their innovative use of an active strike: this comprised of holding lectures in public spaces and included live
readings of La Princess de Cleves, a classic French novel that Sarkozy
has slated as irrelevant to contemporary education. The President
caused furore when, commenting upon on the works inclusion as part of
civil service entry exams, he remarked: It must have been chosen by
either an imbecile or a sadistWould it ever cross your mind to ask a
[female] receptionist what she thought about it?

 

Nevertheless, the picture was not one of a unanimous
front. A considerable counter-movement of students who opposed the
strikes conducted anti-strikes and counter-demonstrations at
universities such as the conservative Lyon III. By May, enough teaching
time had been lost for situation to become a trenchant stand-off
between the universities and the government, with neither side wanting
to back down in the shadow of protracted negotiations.  

 

Events were forced to a close with the heads of the universities and students assembling at Paris Sorbonne IV on Tuesday 19th
May to discuss the announcement by Pécresse that the semester would be
extended so that students would not have to sit exams in September.
Rather than lose the student support that has sustained the movement,
the universities were forced to announce the end of the strike on
Monday 25th May and with it the commencement of an intense
three-week teaching session followed by a week of exams, even though
term was originally scheduled to end on 6th June.  

 

Florian Tixier, a student at the Sorbonne IV University stated:  

I think that although the idea of an active strike was an original
and positively revolutionary idea. The teachers could not face a crisis
that the government allowed to deteriorate. The result is now an
impasse between the two sides, with the biggest losers the students,
especially those who have to work to fund their studies.  

 

The strike has revealed the shade of dissent taking hold across
Frances political spectrum as anti-Sarkozy sentiment builds not only
on the Left, but within the public sector and civil society more
broadly. Strikes within the pilots unions designed to disrupt the
activities of French holidaymakers over the summer look imminent and
there remains the continued threat that universities will resume their
strike with the new autumn term. Whether the government will yield to
this traditional form of resistance remains to be seen, although as
feeling against them grows they would be well advised to start
considering new tactics.  

 

 

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