Unions cast doubt on French reforms

FRENCH student and academic union leaders are trying to agree a common stand on their involvement in four government working parties set up to introduce university reform.

The four committees, on student conditions, teaching practices, staff conditions and university management, are part of the response to last year's student strikes and the move to university reform by October 1997.

But unions are frustrated because tight control of the French budget deficit means there is no fresh funding to enact any reforms. Debate on student aid has again been postponed, officially in order to carry out an "audit" on the different forms of government handouts.

After their joint meeting, the unions declared that "decisions must be negotiated and must include the fixing of budget resources required".

Education minister Francois Bayrou said the reform "will be a redistribution of existing aid. Let there be no mistake: we will not be able to spend extra billions with the state spending crisis we are facing".

Government spending on student support was calculated last year by the government and put at FFr23 billion (Pounds 2.7 billion).

On a tougher note, he warned the unions that without consensus, there would be no reform. "He told us that would then be our fault, but it is the minister who has to take responsibility for leading the way and speeding things up a bit," noted one student representative.

Claude Lecaille, general secretary of the academic union SNESUP, said: "The real problem is that there can be no real reform without improved resources. Bayrou's idea of a first 'orientation' semester poses the issue of resources and the quality of any new set up."

Both student and academic unions have opposed ministerial proposals for an eliminatory examination at the end of such a semester and the scrapping of September re-sits. "One ministry official said this semester should 'liquefy' the student population. As a chemist, I know what liquefaction implies. We don't want the first semester to become a sorting office," said Mr Lecaille.

Student unions are anxious that the reform on student aid might not meet their demand for "social justice and student autonomy".