Invited on France Inter at the beginning of July 2022, Pap Ndiaye, Minister of National Education, declared that "there will be a teacher in front of every class, in every school in France". However, according to the Ministry's figures, out of the 27,332 positions opened in 2022, only 19,838 had been filled in the public sector, and 3,482 in the private sector, contributing to the skepticism of the teachers' unions.
To compensate for the lack of candidates, the Ministry has therefore increased the recruitment of contract teachers (non-tenured teachers who did not pass the National Education recruitment exam) for the start of the school year, with the controversial organization of interviews ("job-datings") in some academies.
In a survey conducted shortly before the start of the school year, 56 percent of French people considered the recruitment of more teachers to be a priority measure for improving the functioning of the education system. This measure was particularly popular among people close to left-wing political parties, and slightly less so among supporters of the presidential party (39 percent) and Eric Zemmour's party (44 percent).
A large proportion of the French population (nearly 60 percent) considers the current functioning of middle and high school education to be defective. They are also quite numerous to judge the functioning of education in preschool (23 percent) and elementary school (35 percent) as poor. However, the proportion of Emmanuel Macron's party sympathizers who believe that the education system works well for all levels is significantly higher than the population as a whole.
Moreover, the dynamic does not seem to be going in the right direction for the evolution of the situation in the areas where it works the least well, and, with the exception of preschools, a majority of French people consider that the situation is getting worse. In 2022, about seven out of ten French people thought that education in middle and high schools was declining, and more than half thought the same about elementary schools.
In addition to the recruitment measures needed to address the teacher shortage, other solutions could be put in place to improve the performance of the education system. Among these, improving teacher training and evaluation is considered a priority by three out of five people. More than a quarter of the French also believe that a better distribution of resources between privileged and disadvantaged areas should be a priority, and that school directors should be given more autonomy, particularly in terms of teacher recruitment. Reducing the number of teachers in order to increase their salaries is also considered a positive measure.
Indeed, while it seems that teachers' salaries have increased somewhat in recent years, in both the public and private sectors, this has not been sufficient to compensate for the effects of inflation on purchasing power. According to a report from the Senate published at the end of 2021, in constant euros, i.e. once the impact of inflation is taken into account, French teachers have lost between 15 and 25 percent of their salaries over the last twenty years.
In addition, the salary level of French teachers is among the lowest in the OECD countries, both in terms of starting salary and salary after 15 years of experience. By comparison, in 2019, German elementary school teachers had a starting salary more than twice that of French teachers.