Dozens of high school students block a train in Lyon [AFP]

Across France, workers marched in the streets in what unions said was a dress rehearsal for broader strike action next Thursday.
 
Sarkozy plans to cut 22,900 civil servant jobs including 11,200 in education this September, and another 35,000 next year.
 
Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT union, said: "This is a major day of protest. The only vision that the government has for the public service is an accountant's vision."
 
Presidential statement
 
Seven of the eight unions representing France's 2.5 million state employees took part in the one-day strike, and about one-quarter of their membership was involved.

France's public service ministry said the total number of strikers was more than on the last day of protest in January.

About 60 per cent of France's 740,000 teachers went on strike, according to union leaders, though the government put the figure lower at 39 per cent in high schools and 46 per cent in the primary sector.

Hospital workers, customs and tax officials and government employees and meteorologists have also joined in the strike.

Jean-Marc Cannon, head of the CGT union for state employees, called on Sarkozy's government to "consider the full measure of what is going on".

The president's office said Sarkozy was to due make a statement on the issue of education later on Thursday from the Elysee palace.

Sarkozy campaigned for the presidency last year on a plan to trim down the civil service as a cost-cutting measure and as part of a broader plan to overhaul the state.

In Paris, more than 50,000 civil servants, teachers, students and parents led by senior union leaders marched behind a banner that read "Together to defend and improve the public service".

Police put the figure in the capital at 18,000.

Clashes

Outside of the capital, organisers said about 30,000 people turned out at a similar protest in Marseille, but police put the figure at 7,000.

In Grenoble, clashes broke out during a march of 2,000 students, as youths hurled cans and bottles at riot police who responded with tear gas.

Police blamed the violence on a small group of troublemakers.

More than 10,000 protesters marched in Bordeaux, according to organisers while police said 6,200 turned up.

There were also big marches in Toulouse and Lyon.

Xavier Darcos, France's education minister, reiterated the government's determination to pare down the education department, the biggest ministry employing some 1.2 million people.

He said the key issue facing French education was not saving  jobs, but the challenge of providing better education.

"When you have 1.2 million civil servants, it's not true that a few thousand jobs here or there is going to settle the problem," he said.

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