BESANCON, FRANCE, April 6 — Riot police attacked 500 parents, teachers and high school students with riot clubs and tear gas during a peaceful demonstration outside the board of education protesting teaching staff layoffs in this city of 117,000.

The action was called by Federation of Councils of Parents of Pupils (equivalent to the Parent-Teacher Association [PTA] in the U.S.). The demonstrators chanted, blew on whistles and beat saucepans with wooden spoons. When a long-distance coach drove down the narrow street, the crowd was forced to surge towards the police, who immediately reacted violently.

Some parents had brought small children. One two-year-old child’s eyes went all red and was seized with a fit of trembling.

The demonstrators denounced the attack as proof of “the feverishness of a government which is attempting at all costs to force through the destruction of public services and whose only answer to our demands is force and obstinate silence.”

Since 2007, over 50,000 education jobs have been cut nationally, with another 16,000 slated for September. This is part of the government plan to reduce the budget deficit by 100 billion euros (US$136 billion) in order to satisfy “the financial markets.” The budget “deficit” is due mostly to the bailout of the banks.

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s (EU) statistics bureau, the EU bank bailout cost 15.4 billion euros (US$21 billion) and the EU’s total government debt in 2009 amounted to 8.7 trillion euros (nearly US$12 trillion). The interest on that debt goes straight into the pockets of the capitalists. To ensure they get their’s, the capitalists demand public service cuts.

Under capitalism, education is always run in the bosses’ interest. Only under communism can education be totally transformed into an activity that promotes both the development of the individual and the good of society.