Question 11789 — foreign policy

Summary

Mr Jérôme Legavre questions the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs about the teachers' strike in Palestine. Since October 13, 2025, teachers have decided to go on strike to obtain satisfaction of their demands: full salary and full working hours. Their salaries were arbitrarily lowered in June 2025, then only paid half. This plunged a many of them in a difficult situation and pushed them to resort to strike action to obtain their financial and professional rights. But, even though the strike is a legal and peaceful means of asserting their rights for employees in this territory, the strikers are victims of brutal pressure, punitive measures and threats to make them give up their demands and return to work without the The root of the problem is not resolved. Thus, the Lawyers for Justice association (located in Ramallah) noted that the West Bank government carried out “a series of serious violations against the teachers participating in the strike, ranging from administrative, economic, security and social pressure, the most notable of which are the following: threats of dismissal, suspension or retirement without legal justification; salary reduction despite irregular payment (...); arbitrary transfer to other schools or directions (...); social and family pressures, particularly against female teachers, including threats of divorce and the creation of conflicts within the family to force them to return to work; summons of certain teachers by the security services; replacement of striking teachers with replacements on temporary contracts until the end of the school year in order to weaken the position of teachers and undermine the strike; psychological and professional harassment in the form of intimidation, direct threats, verbal warnings or informal notifications of deprivation of benefits (...)”. Furthermore, the lawyers point out, “these facts indicate that the administrative framework has become a tool of pressure and collective punishment rather than a mechanism for organizing work. Some of these violations constitute a serious attack on the constitutional right to strike and create a dangerous environment for teachers.” Indeed, article 19 of the fundamental law provides that “freedom of opinion is inviolable and that every individual has the right to express and disseminate his opinion through speech, writing or any other means of expression or art, in compliance with the provisions of the law.” And Law No. 11 of 2017 governing the right to strike of civil servants expressly authorizes the use of strike as a means of protest and demand and in particular its article 1, which constitutes the legal reference applicable in the case of teachers. The situation of the population of the West Bank, as of the entire population Palestinian, is perfectly documented and known by France and the services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These services themselves have until recent years recalled that “the constraints of the occupation” exert particularly painful pressures on the territory: “collection of customs taxes at source by Israel and discretionary reimbursement (blocked on occasion as a retaliatory measure), restriction freedom of movement of people and goods in zone C (60% of the West Bank) controlled by Israel, continued colonization, East Jerusalem de facto integrated into Israel, blockade of Gaza, etc. This is what has led the French State, for decades, to financially support UN services and organizations (UNRWA, UNESCO), or to form international partnerships to help Palestinian refugees, particularly to allow them access to food, healthcare, water and energy and education. And the Government provides financial support to the government of the Palestinian Authority, “in order to support the Palestinian Authority, which is weakened by the ongoing conflict and whose stability is a strong French diplomatic priority”. In the 2026 PLF, the Government has included 8 million euros in budgetary operations, emphasizing that “direct budgetary aid falls within the framework of the sovereignty of the beneficiary State, namely the payment of salary arrears (...). This envelope will be entirely dedicated to the AP in 2026, as in 2025.” However, the press echoed, at the beginning of October 2025, the laments of the rector of the Jenin governorate and the deputy minister of education of the Palestinian Authority: “We have two months unpaid and when salaries are paid, this does not exceed 50% to 60%. We have already had to postpone the start of the school year by a week, while the Government finds the means to settle part of those for June.” The striking teachers explain exactly the same thing and are mobilizing because they want to live. She also stressed that the PA police and security services, well equipped and "representing a good third of civil servants", are decried by the population because they are seen as auxiliaries of the occupying force, quick "to repress any movement of protest against the AP" and, we see today, repress the legitimate strike mobilization of teachers. It goes without saying that the “fragilities” of the Palestinian Authority highlighted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which the MP understands as the diplomatic name of a rampant corruption) and the abuses carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinian population in all territories (retention of money from customs taxes, bombings, multiplication of checkpoints, encouragement of colonization) are considerable obstacles to the exercise of their rights for Palestinians and for employees. Again in August 2025, the Government published a press release in which "France strongly condemns the destruction, by the Israeli authorities, of a school under construction in the north of the West Bank, financed by the AFD, in connection with the EU", specifying that "this is the second demolition of a project financed by the AFD in the West Bank, to which is added the destruction of the center of the Al-Bustan Association, in East Jerusalem, supported by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and 21 French local authorities”. The Israeli Minister of Finance and minister responsible for the occupied West Bank within the Ministry of Defense, Mr. Smotrich, "suspended all payments to the Palestinian Authority" and claimed "that he was seeking the collapse of the Palestinian Government through 'economic strangulation'" (AFP). In these circumstances, the deputy wishes to know the measures that the Government so that the funds that France sends to the PA are effectively used to pay salaries, and so that threats and repression against strikers cease and a solution consistent with the law and their rights is provided to the financial, professional and personal situation of teachers in the West Bank: respect for the right to strike and full payment of salaries. He also wishes to know the means by which the Government intends to lead the Israeli State to cease the occupation and the abuses committed against the Palestinian people.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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