Teachers at a school outside Paris refused to work on Monday as the establishment grappled with a crisis sparked by the showing in class of a painting by a Renaissance master containing several nude women, reports FRANCE 24.
Education minister Gabriel Attal visited the Jacques-Cartier middle school in Issou, west of Paris, in person on Monday and later said the pupils concerned would be disciplined.
On Thursday, "during a French class, a colleague showed a 17th-century painting that showed naked women", said Sophie Venetitay, secretary general of the Snes-FSU secondary school teachers' union.
The painting, "Diana and Actaeon" by the Italian painter Giuseppe Cesari, portrays a Greek mythology story in which the hunter Actaeon bursts in at a site where the goddess Diana and her nymphs are bathing.
The work, which shows a naked Diana and four female companions, is held at the Louvre museum in Paris.
"Some students averted their gaze, felt offended, said they were shocked," Venetitay said, adding that "some also alleged the teacher made racist comments" during a class discussion.