As the new school year approaches across Europe, fresh figures from a major French teachers’ union reveal deep dissatisfaction in the profession, with scandals and rising violence adding to the sense of crisis in education systems across the continent.
“Schools are running out of steam,” declared Se-Unsa general secretary Elisabeth Allain-Moreno as she presented the results of the union’s latest annual barometer, which surveyed around 40,000 teachers and other related staff.
Nearly three-quarters of French teachers surveyed said they would not recommend their career to others. The survey revealed that over half of respondents are considering leaving the profession, and nearly 77% say they would never recommend it. The survey also highlights dissatisfaction with the working conditions. The overwhelming sentiment is that of neglect. More than 70% of teachers said they feel a lack of recognition and respect from the state.
The discontent in French education has also been overshadowed by the Bétharram scandal, one of the most significant cases of abuse linked to an educational institution. The scandal has poisoned the political life of French Prime Minister François Bayrou, who sent his own children to the school but maintains he was unaware of the atrocities. A parliamentary inquiry and consistent testimonies from teachers and parents, however, undermine his narrative. In May 2025, Bayrou admitted to lying to MPs about his knowledge of the violence.
Elsewhere in Europe, similar problems are emerging. In Vienna, teachers have warned of worsening classroom conditions, citing language barriers, violence, and cultural conflicts linked to mass immigration. Local unions have reported incidents ranging from assaults on teachers to demands that staff wear Islamic religious clothing, as well as cases of mock executions staged by pupils.
The scale of the problem was underscored by German government data released earlier this year: in 2024, Germany recorded 35,570 violent incidents in schools, averaging nearly 100 cases per day. Some 740 of these involved knife attacks. Of the 11,558 suspects identified, nearly 40% did not hold German citizenship, including 1,236 Syrians and 421 Afghans. Fourteen federal states reported increases in school violence compared to 2023.
AfD domestic policy spokesman Martin Hess directly blamed immigration, calling for tighter border controls, more deportations of criminal foreigners, and an end to what he described as the “multicultural experiment.”
A series of high-profile attacks on educators in recent years has heightened concerns over declining public safety in schools. France was shaken by the beheading of Samuel Paty in 2020 and again in June when a 31-year-old teaching assistant was fatally stabbed. In the Netherlands, a 53-year-old teacher from Dordrecht was seriously injured in a stabbing last month during a school musical.
