Tens of thousands of French teachers took part in a day of strikes and demonstrations last week to show their opposition to planned cuts in the numbers of ancillary staff - including 20,000 classroom assistants.

Underlying the protests were fears about the possible effects of proposals to devolve more power to the regions.

According to the education ministry, 44 per cent of teachers took part in the strikes. The unions claimed that more than 60 per cent of teachers stopped work.

The schools minister Xavier Darcos brushed aside the protests: “You have to keep their mobilisation in perspective when you know that the professional union elections are drawing near.”

The action was organised by the five principal teacher trade union groupings, backed by bodies representing ancillary staff. These included school nurses, social workers, caretakers and young people working in schools under the previous socialist government’s job creation scheme.

The protests were triggered by the announcement of government plans to cut about 25,600 jobs in the education service. Frontline teachers would not be affected but a rolling programme to recruit teachers, established under the previous government, would be abandoned.

Under threat are the 5,600 supervisors or monitors (nicknamed pions, or pawns) who are supposed to be students aged under 29 hoping eventually to make a career in education and combining work with their studies. Their task is to supervise the comings and goings of pupils and periods of detention.

Also at risk are the 20,000 emplois-jeunes employed by the socialists. They give individual help to pupils in class, assist handicapped children and help operate new technology. In all, the national education system employs 62,000 educational assistants, the first of whom were recruited in 1997 for a five-year term which has now ended.

The education minister Luc Ferry has spoken of employing 11,000 new staff to fill much the same role as the monitors and educational assistants. But the unions fear that the new government’s plans to devolve power to the regions will mean these posts are never created.

Responsibility for the employment and payment of administrative and supervisory staff may be passed to local authorities. The unions fear that they will be reluctant to raise local taxes to fill the posts.