The Prime Minister, António Costa, this Saturday said the protests are “part of freedom and democracy” after confronting many teachers who took advantage of June 10 to demonstrate in Régua.
“The teachers’ protest is part of freedom and democracy, only journalists find it strange that there are protests. It is part of democracy,” said António Costa, trying to maintain a dialogue with a teacher, after the military ceremony of the of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.
Peso da Régua, in the district of Vila Real, was the stage chosen by the President of the Republic for the June 10 celebration and by many teachers who demonstrated there.
After finishing the military ceremony, António Costa walked the route from Avenida do Douro to the place chosen for lunch, always followed by many teachers shouting “respect” among other things. The same message was on the posters, some of which also read “acquiescence” and showed the prime minister with two pencils in his eyes and a pig’s nose.
On arrival at the restaurant, the Prime Minister’s wife, Fernanda Tadeu, was agitated by some of the teachers’ protesting remarks. Initially, António Costa asked the woman not to respond to the comments, but then turned around and yelled “racist”, visibly agitated.
However, booed by the teachers, the Prime Minister was cheered by many popular people who told him: “welcome to the Douro”, “we are here to support you” and “Régua is with you”.
“I feel very good in the Douro and throughout the country,” he stressed, emphasizing again that the background noise that accompanied him “is a demonstration right.”
“With better taste, with worse taste, with these posters are a bit racistbut that’s it, that’s life,” he stressed.
In the conversation he had with a teacher, António Costa said teachers are “very unfair”.
“They are very unfair and they are unfair because they are protesting a government that has put an end to career freezes,” he said, interrupted by the teacher to whom he said “may I speak? I want respect too”.
And he insisted, referring to that “for the first time since 2018, his career has thawed, a career that has never had so many consecutive years of thawing.”
“So we unfreeze, we keep the career unfrozen and we guarantee to keep the career unfrozen. The time recovery that was made was exactly the same as for the remaining careers, referring to 70% of the frozen time,” he said. .
Second, he added, taking into account that the “thaw didn’t have the same impact on people depending on what position they were in in their careers” and therefore, he explained, “an accelerator was created”, where the quota was eliminated.
In this dialogue, António Costa was constantly interrupted and asked to speak, trying to point out various measures taken by the government regarding the classroom.
Even earlier, with another teacher from Póvoa de Lanhoso, the head of the government spoke for more than 12 minutes, listening to their complaints and referring that it was the government “that opened the dialogue” and that the interlocutors are the trade unions.
António Costa even had this teacher’s phone number so they could arrange a conversation about the “pedagogical issues” that affect teachers as well.
Source: DN
