Rémi Boyer taught history and geography in French public schools for 21 years but decided to retire early because the job “had become too difficult”, reports FRANCE 24.
Paul* only lasted three years as a design teacher at a vocational high school before he became exhausted and quit.
A German-language teacher who has spent the past five years teaching at a school a two-hour drive from her home is still in the trenches, trying to get transferred.
Public school teachers in France are reaching a breaking point. Faced with overcrowded classrooms, heavy workloads and low pay, many feel the commitment required by the profession is no longer sustainable.
Years of neglect and underfunding have left French public schools struggling, and teachers are bearing the brunt of these challenges – often with little support or recognition.
Despite promises by successive governments to address the issue, reforms have failed to tackle core problems. There have been four education ministers in the last year alone.
Measures introduced by former education minister Gabriel Attal in 2023 and implemented for the 2024-2025 school term include more testing in primary schools, a controversial plan to separate middle school students into groups according to their mathematics and French levels, and experimenting with mandatory school uniforms – moves fiercely opposed by education unions, who have called for successive strikes since the start of the year.