Fate Worse than Exams

French schoolchildren, who have long quaked at their formidable baccalaureat exam, last week were faced with an even worse fate--no exams. Demanding an $80 million raise, France's 325,000 teachers threatened to suspend next summer's bachots. For 180,000 lycee students, no bachot meant no entrance to universities, no draft deferment--and, for men, a possible call to Algeria.

What incited the teachers was the government's earmarking of $40 million-$60 million to pay 30,000 teachers in Catholic parochial schools--while it offered public school teachers only a $32 million raise. By such tactics as refusing to mark report cards, the fiercely anticlerical teachers have focused attention on decrepit buildings, overcrowded classrooms and minuscule salaries (even in costly Paris, a $200 monthly top for grade-school teachers).

France is so short of teachers who will accept such conditions that Education Minister Lucien Paye last week upped his ante to $60 million, got a "postponement" of the exam strike. But the teachers may yet sabotage exams. "The war in Algeria costs around $2 billion a year," said one. "But there isn't $80 million in the treasury to pay teachers decently. Ah, the glory of France!"

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