New French education minister is already arguing with teachers

French Education Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra has been in office for less than a week, but has already been booed during a school visit. The minister, about whom so much has been written in recent days that her name has been corrupted to ‘AOC’, is being criticized for putting her own children in private schools. For teachers, this is an indication that they have no confidence in the national education which she must lead herself.

It is not the first time that such criticism has surfaced – Pap Ndiaye (Minister of Education between May 2022 and July 2023) also came after his appointment to be under fire because his children dan le private went to school. But while the fire around Ndiaye quickly died out, Oudéa-Castéra himself added fuel to it by lying about the reason why. On Friday she said that this was because at the public primary school where her eldest son initially attended in 2009, called Littré, lessons were regularly canceled and lessons were not properly attended to.

This was followed by the school with an explanation that this was nonsense: the boy had attended this primary school for six months, during which time there had been no dropouts. The child was reportedly taken out of school because Oudéa-Castéra and her husband wanted him to be placed in a higher class. They managed to do that at the fancy private school Stanislas where he went afterwards.

After the weekend, AOC realized that she had no choice but to go back on her words, so she visited Littré on Tuesday. There were boos upon arrival and departure. A group union members and parents was ready with whistles and frying pans and shouted to the minister “just like [haar] children to return to the private sector”. Oudéa-Castéra said afterwards that she was able to apologize to the school management. She now hopes to put the matter behind her. The question is whether parents, teachers and union leaders will do the same.

Also read
Young Prime Minister Attal must give Macron’s presidency new impetus

To share





Email the editor