Ahead of our latest round of strike days, Birmingham UCU was pleased to receive a message of solidarity from casualised teaching staff from universities across Paris, who are facing similar threats to their employment rights and academic freedom.

Dear UK striking teaching staff,

We are writing to you from the group Lect_s en Lutte to express our solidarity with your ongoing mobilisation for fair pay, decent working conditions and a fair and representative pensions programme Good luck with the strike!

Lect_s en Lutte is a group of casualised teaching staff from universities across Paris that has come together to organise our approach to the ongoing social movement in France. Since December 5 2019, those of us who have been able to strike have been doing so while those of us who are more precarious have chosen to teach about the social movement during class time. Workers from all industries are facing an immense threat from the French government’s proposed pension reform that would leave everyone worse off – particularly women, minorities and teaching staff. Universities are facing a specific threat from the proposed LPPR law which would greatly increase the precarity of an academic career and raises concerns about freedom of research.

We believe that we are in a common struggle with you against the neoliberalisation of universities and against the increasing precarity of university teaching staff. Therefore, we commit to raising awareness of the UCU movement across British universities on the picket and as part of our teach ins. Please let us know if we can help you any further in your struggle.

Solidarity from Paris!

Lectrice at Paris Nanterre

PhD student, University of Warwick

Lectrice d’anglais, Université Paris Nanterre

King’s College London alumna

Tom Allen

Lecteur, Paris 3.

PhD student, University of Sussex

Richard Gledhill

Maître de langue, Université Paris Nanterre

Goldsmith’s College alumnus

Jessica Saxby

Lectrice d’anglais, Université Paris Nanterre

UoL alumna

Henry Ward

Lecteur d’anglais, Université Paris Nanterre

Megan Bowden

Vacataire, Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle

UCL alumna

Rona Tunnadine

Lectrice, Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle

Camberwell, UCL and Cambridge alumna

Calvin Cheng

Lecteur d’anglais, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Alumnus, University of Wolverhampton

Nicholas Stedman

Maître de langue, Université Paris Nanterre

DPhil student, University of Oxford

Ariana Peiteado Alonso

Lectrice de langue galicienne, Université Paris 3

Sorbonne Nouvelle

Nicolas Jara Joly

Phd student, Paris Nanterre