Teachers at a middle school in Issou, west of Paris, refused to work on Monday as the establishment grappled with a crisis sparked by the showing in class of a painting by a Renaissance master containing several nude women.
On Thursday, "during a French class, a colleague showed a 17th-century painting that showed naked women", said Sophie Venetitay, secretary general of the Snes-FSU secondary school teachers' union.
The painting, "Diana and Actaeon" by the Italian painter Giuseppe Cesari, portrays a Greek mythology story in which the hunter Actaeon bursts in at a site where the goddess Diana and her nymphs are bathing.
The work, which shows a naked Diana and four female companions, is on show at the Louvre museum in Paris.
"Some students averted their gaze, felt offended, said they were shocked," Venetitay said, adding that "some also alleged the teacher made racist comments" during a class discussion.
A pupil's parent sent an email to the school director saying that his son was prevented from speaking during that discussion and that he would file a complaint, she said.
She said it was the "final straw" for teachers at the school, who had complained of a "very degraded climate" as well as a "lack of support" from management despite "several alerts".
In an email sent to parents on Friday, teachers said they were exercising their right to stay away from classrooms over the "particularly difficult situation" at the high school.
They described "palpable discomfort" and "an increase in cases of violence" as their daily reality.
Education Minister Gabriel Attal visited the Jacques-Cartier middle school in Issou, west of Paris, on Monday and announced "disciplinary proceedings against the pupils who are responsible for this situation and who have admitted the facts".
The tensions come after a series of attacks against teachers in recent years.
A French court on Friday convicted six teenagers for their role in the 2020 beheading of the teacher Samuel Paty near his secondary school near Paris.
The murder of another teacher, Dominique Bernard, in October this year revived fears that the tension between France's secularism and resurgent religious extremism could play out violently in schools.
Like Paty, Bernard was stabbed to death by a young man from Chechnya exposed to radical Islam.
(with AFP)
