French teachers call nationwide strike over budget cuts

An inter-union coalition which includes at least five major teachers’ unions, has called a week of action running from March 30th to April 3rd 2026 – including a one-day nationwide strike on Tuesday, March 31st.

The unions oppose the 2026 budget, which they view as an austerity policy that will weaken public education and result in job losses.

School or class closures, reduced services, and disruption to both school and extracurricular transport are likely, depending on the level of support for the strike in local areas.

How will this impact schools?

At this stage, no details are available for the disruption on March 31st.

Regional and school authority announcements are expected between March 26th and March 30th, but possible impacts include:

• The total or partial closure of primary and secondary schools
• Cancelled lessons, adjusted schedules, reduced school support services (staff, supervised study cessions)
• Possible closure of school canteens

You will be able to find the details of the impacts from schools directly (digital learning platforms, emails, and notices). Meanwhile, you can check the town hall website as well as local information channels.

Teachers in primaire (for children aged three to 11) are required to provide 48 hours’ notice, of their intention to strike – so that parents can arrange alternative childcare – but teachers in collège or lycée are not required to provide notice in advance.

Why the strike?

Teacher unions are contesting the 2026 government budget, which they describe as an austerity budget. They are condemning job cuts, reductions in the total teaching hours, which would increase class sizes and eliminate certain optional subjects, as well as a lack of resources deemed incompatible with improving learning conditions.

In total, 4,000 teaching positions are set to be cut by the start of the 2026 school year, in both the public and private sectors.

In January, the Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray, cited a “dramatic demographic decline” to justify these cuts.

According to national studies, pupil numbers fell by 1.7 percent at the start of the 2025 academic year, with 106,900 fewer pupils than in 2024. This argument has been widely rejected by the unions, who believe, on the contrary, that this decline should make it possible to reduce class sizes. 

Since mid-February, a number of protests have already taken place. On February 17th, several hundred people demonstrated in Paris, and around six percent of teachers in the Île-de-France region went on strike. In Bordeaux, on March 11th, around a hundred teachers, accompanied by parents, gathered outside the local education authority. 

Ahead of March 31st, a day of action is planned for March 26th in the Poitiers (western France) education authority, and an inter-union call for a strike has been issued in the Aix-Marseille (south of France) education authority.

A national inter-union press conference is scheduled for Monday, March 30th, to provide further details on the protests, and activities for the rest of the ‘week of action’.