Thousands in Paris Protest Public School Plan : France: Attempts to fund repairs at private schools anger parents, teachers and students. The march is also a show of strength for leftists.

Hundreds of thousands of French parents, teachers and students marched down a cold, rainy boulevard in Paris on Sunday, staging the largest political demonstration in nearly a decade to protest attempts by the conservative government to increase state funding for private schools.

The procession was the first significant show of strength for the leftist opposition in France since it was ousted by conservatives in decisive elections last April. And it was a warning to Edouard Balladur, the popular prime minister, that he must tread carefully when tampering with education--long one of France’s political minefields.

The march originally had been organized to protest a government law, announced late last month, that lifted a 140-year-old limit on local government spending for private-school repairs.

Balladur later tried to soften the new law by promising a new financial boost for public schools. But the law was annulled last week by the Constitutional Council, France’s supreme court, which said the law did not guarantee equal treatment to public and private schools.

Dozens of charter buses and trains from the provinces fed the vibrant procession, which began at the Place de la Republique in central Paris and stretched four miles southeast along Boulevard Voltaire to the Place de la Nation.

Organizers, including Socialists, Communists and teachers unions, estimated the crowd at 1 million. Police said the crowd numbered about 250,000, making it the largest demonstration in France since 1986.

Marchers, bundled up in heavy coats and rain slickers and lugging umbrellas, sang and carried colorful, hand-lettered signs reading “Private Schools--The Priests Must Fork Out,” “People Stand Up--Your School Is in Danger” and “Public Money for Public Schools.”

Others singled out Education Minister Francois Bayrou for scorn.

“No, Mr. Bayrou, the Money of Public Schools Is Not Yours,” read one sign. “Saint Bayrou’s Gospel: Have Pity for the Rich,” read another.

“The government must first help state schools,” said Jean-Pierre Broudic, a 50-year-old salesman from Brittany, where more than 40% of pupils go to private schools. “We are defending the schools for everybody.”

Rene Pichard, 35, also from Brittany, added: “We’re here to show the government that we are ready to fight for the defense of state schools. They are the schools of the French Revolution.”

Nationally, 17% of the country’s pupils attend private schools, most of which are Catholic. Most of those schools already receive all their operating funds from the state, amounting to 13% of the national education budget, under an agreement in which they promise to use the government syllabus and admit children of any religion.

But the law only allowed local authorities to pay for up to 10% of private-school repairs and infrastructure.

Balladur’s attempt to increase infrastructure spending for private schools reignited a long battle over education in France, which has a tradition of high-quality secular public schools that are free to all residents.

Political analysts said Balladur’s government may have underestimated the nation’s sensitivity to the issue.

School and college reforms have sparked violent clashes in 1968, 1984 and 1986. And now, with unemployment already 12% and showing no signs of abating, many French fear that any reduction in state spending on public education will make it even more difficult for their children to get jobs after graduation.

The government has not indicated whether it intends to try again to increase private education spending with a new law that sidesteps the constitutional objections. But it is under pressure to meet an election pledge to equalize school financing.

*

The issue provided an opportunity for the left-wing opposition, which has been largely silent in the face of Balladur’s high ratings in the opinion polls, to rejoin the country’s political fray. Socialist leader Michel Rocard and other opposition figures were at the front of the march Sunday.

“We have to stay vigilant,” said Marie-Annick Kipman, a 60-year-old Paris psychiatrist and mother of four. “We cannot let them destroy the school of equality. We must defend the right for school for everybody, and not a school based on money.”

Times researcher Sarah White contributed to this story.