French protest against school proposals

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 11

French protest against school proposals

NZPA-Reuter Paris Between 650,000 and 800,000 people took to the streets of Versailles on Sunday to protest against plans to put private education in France under tighter State control.

Waving banners reading, “A free country should have free schools,” the marchers called for the resignation of the Education Minister, Mr Alain Savary, who drew up the reform plans. Organisers said that more than 800,000 had taken part in the protest The police put the figure at 650,000. It was the biggest of a series of nation-wide marches in support of France’s 10,000 mainly Catholic private schools. “We are here to defend freedom,” one woman told reporters, “freedom of education for our children and freedom of choice for parents.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in the cities of Bordeaux, Lyons,

Rennes, and Lille since January to oppose the reforms.

The Mayor of Paris, Mr Jacques Chirac, the leader of the neo-Gaullist R.P.R. opposition party, was among politicians at the Versailles protest Recent surveys have shown that about 70 per cent of French people favour maintaining the system under which private schools Cay their own running costs ut receive State aid for teachers* salaries and benefits.

About two million children attend private schools, 93 per cent of which are Catholic and heavily subsidised by the State. The proposed reforms, which wul go before Parliament soon, would limit teaching positions in private schools, bring their budgets and procedures under regional control, and integrate thein teachers into the State sysfttn by making them public employees.