French university strikes have government recalling 1968
Students and university staff have been on strike since 2 February against reforms by President Nicolas Sarkozy which would give institutions more direct control over staff by means of increased autonomy from the state.
Their action has paralysed some institutions, such as the Sorbonne in Paris, and disrupted around 30 of France’s other 83 universities, closing lecture halls and suspending research projects.
The government has made concessions on some of its proposals, rewriting a decree that proposed changing academics’ conditions of employment and restoring jobs it had intended cutting. Now, as the strike starts its seventh week, teacher-training reforms remain the protesters’ stated area of dispute.
Last year, the government announced its “masterisation” plan for teacher training, the introduction of a compulsory master’s degree in education for all new schoolteachers, raising the minimum qualification from a bachelor’s degree.
Mr Sarkozy says that, without reforms, the higher-education system is “unsuited to the 21st century”. In a provocative speech to university researchers in January, he said, “I do not see how a system of weak universities, led by a fussy central government, can be an effective weapon in the battle for knowledge. On the contrary, it’s infantilising, and paralyses creativity and innovation.”
Opponents, however, argue that the changes, which include regular external evaluation of researchers and penalties for academics who do not meet performance targets, are aimed at turning universities into short-term profit-making institutions.
Students fear, in particular, that universities will become more elitist and that prospects for young people in a country where youth unemployment is already at 20 percent will worsen.
From Esther Bintliff at the Financial Times and Jane Marshall at University World News
