Guest of the Morning of CNEWS this Tuesday, January 18, the government spokesperson Gabriel Attal returned to the controversy surrounding the holidays in Ibiza of the Minister of Education just before the start of the school year.
“I am not here to lecture or to judge the feelings of each other or of the French”, he underlined, recalling that Jean-Michel Blanquer had respected the rules in force for the holidays of ministers. “You have to be contactable at all times. At his task. I have no reason to think that this was not the case with Jean-Michel Blanquer”, he continued.
Gabriel Attal also recalled that if the health protocol had arrived so “lately” (the evening before the start of the school year, editor’s note) “it is because the recommendations of the High Council for Public Health were needed, which arrived December 31 in the evening.
Still, the revelations about Jean-Michel Blanquer’s vacation fall badly, several teachers’ unions having called for a new day of strike this Thursday. Faced with the scale of the controversy, several opposition figures are calling for the resignation of the Minister of National Education. “Members of the opposition seize the slightest opportunity to demand the resignation of all members of the government”, reacted on CNEWS the spokesperson.
Discussions continue with unions
On the health protocol in schools, which crystallizes the anger of Education staff, Gabriel Attal was optimistic, specifying that not all the unions had called for mobilization and “that exchanges were taking place to continue to work on the central issue of epidemic management in the school”.
He also recalled that last Thursday, the meeting held between the Ministers of National Education and Health, accompanied by the unions, will have made it possible to take stock of concrete measures concerning “FFP2 masks for teachers, on the CO2 sensors as well as replacements and the calendar of events”. “It is this work that we carry out and that we do in the interest of teachers and families”.
And to emphasize that if the protocol is “difficult”, it “will have made it possible to keep the promise of leaving the establishments open”.
While the number of classes currently closed has never been so high (more than 14,000 identified three days ago) since the spring of 2020, measures within schools should remain in place for a while longer because the virus “circulates very quickly, including outside and in schools”.