The Parisian demonstration of several teacher unions scheduled for Thursday January 20 to demand “strong responses” face au « chaos » caused by the health crisis, was banned by the Paris police headquarters.
→ CONTEXT. Education: new call for strike Thursday January 20 in schools, colleges and high schools
“The prefect of police (…) did not ban the demonstration” but could not “to issue a receipt” to organizers whose prior declaration has not been submitted within “legal deadlines”, namely more than three days before the day of mobilization, according to the code of internal security, underlined the prefecture in a press release.
The PP, which says it only received the statement on Tuesday at “12:20”, invites the organizers to “drawing the consequences of the law”. The organizers of a prohibited demonstration incur, according to the penal code, six months’ imprisonment and a fine of €7,500. Participants risk a fine of 135 €. According to a source familiar with the matter, “they were counting on each other to make the declaration, suddenly they are out of time”.
The FSU, CGT Educ’action, FO and SUD Education unions, as well as the FCPE, the leading parent-teacher organization, and the high school student movements FIDL, MNL and La Voix lycéenne have called for “continue mobilization” after the very well-attended strike on Thursday January 13, by committing “in a new day of action on Thursday, including by strike”.
Union and political reactions
“The Paris police headquarters refuses to authorize the demonstration organized by the inter-union of Île-de-France. Not content to remain deaf to the anger and demands of national education personnel, the government, through its representative, denies them the right to express it by demonstrating in Paris., regrets the CGT in a press release.
→ REPORT. Strike in education: in Montpellier, teachers show their fed up
The union judges this decision of the prefect of police “unacceptable” and say “demand that the constitutional right to demonstrate be respected”. “After a successful demonstration, on January 13, the police prefecture prohibits the expression of the demands of the personnel following the announcements made by the Prime Minister (…) The FSU strongly protests and demands that the ban on demonstrations be lifted”, asked this union in another press release.
The decision of the Paris police headquarters provoked several political reactions on Wednesday. Thus, Delphine Batho, spokesperson for the environmental candidate for the presidential Yannick Jadot, demanded the demonstration be finally authorized. “I have never seen that (…) I have never seen a story of a delay in authorizing a demonstration when there is a social movement”, underlined the former minister and president of Generation Ecology on Radio J, recalling that“in a democracy there is freedom to demonstrate”. That is why “We ask that teachers, the school community, be able to express what they have to say. There is no reason for this event to be banned.”.
For her part, the president of the LFI group in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot, accused in a tweet “Prefect Lallement” from “to add fuel to the fire by banning Thursday’s education demonstration”.
– .
