Jean-Michel Blanquer, the bad mark

Five years he has held the reins of the “mammoth”, a record under the Fifth Republic, and it is in the final stretch that everything has gone to hell. At the front for two years of health crisis, Jean-Michel Blanquer had the feeling of having carried out the presidential mission: to keep the school open whatever the cost, even if, for that, he had sometimes had to fight “at bare hands ”, according to his expression, in particular in the spring of 2020 during the first deconfinement, when Édouard Philippe refused to do so. He was proud enough of it to call his advocacy book, published in the fall, “Open School”.

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This mantra of Emmanuel Macron was favored by public opinion and was cited as an example among our European neighbors. In October, the minister set up his think tank, the Laboratoire de la République, in order to fuel the upcoming campaign. But nothing went as planned. The Omicron wave tripped up Jean-Michel Blanquer, the “good student” of the government, the one whom “Le Point” had, in 2018, baptized the “vice-president”. And from “darling” of the head of state and the first lady, he turned into a “ball”, according to a member of the majority. A situation he lives between “rage” and “injustice”, so immense is his feeling of not having been unworthy.

It was a small match that was enough to set the fire. On Sunday January 9, the heads of establishments learn from the press the latest health rules. A week earlier, they had already discovered, still in a media, the measures for the start of the school year. “Beyond the protocol which often changes, what tenses us up is the mode of communication: we cannot discover in a paying newspaper the protocol of the next morning”, laments Bruno Bobkiewicz, secretary general of SNPDEN-Unsa. , the main union of headteachers. Added to the lack of consultation, these communication errors have raised the fed up of Education employees, forced to fight against contamination and tinker every day to compensate for the absence of colleagues, education assistants , sick and unreplaced supervisors. The feet of the “mammoth” are more fragile than it seems. The reforms undertaken over the past five years – that of high school and the baccalaureate, that of initial training, the law for a school of trust, changes in the mobility of teachers, not to mention the pension reform finally abandoned… – have often put the staff in the street. “I have never demonstrated as much as during this five-year term”, assures Élise, French teacher in a Parisian high school. Without succeeding in bending the minister who, until last week, prided himself on standing up to the powerful unions of teachers.

Too good a student, the minister should have said no to inapplicable rules

Of course, most saw this as an opportunity for revenge. But, a sign of the importance of the malaise, they are no longer the only ones. Others, usually more discreet, joined the protesters: education inspectors, school heads, school principals and parents of students. The latter live badly with the e-mails received on Sunday evenings informing them of the latest protocol, of a closed class, of the obligation to have their children tested before the next day. A huge mess, hours of queuing in front of pharmacies, worrying about having to keep their children at home and constantly changing rules. The situation is such that, from January 4, many deputies alert the Prime Minister to the feedback from the field. Very quickly, the Elysée measures the problem. The day after the start of the school year, questioned by the readers of the “Parisien”, the president lowers his thumb: “It takes more anticipation and more time for the rectorates to communicate with the schools upstream. The rest is known. Behind the scenes, Jean-Michel Blanquer calls on the Prime Minister to relax the protocol. Too late. “He was no longer the right transmitter to pacify. He was atomized, ”says a member of the government. On Monday January 10, Jean Castex is dispatched to the set of France 2 to extinguish the fire by burying a protocol which, however, had just been relaxed. He announces new measures without mentioning the name of his minister. A snub.

Feverish, Jean-Michel Blanquer has words, before the Council of Ministers, with Olivier Véran. “It’s normal to have frank discussions between ministers,” he relativized a few days later. Blanquer has the feeling of becoming the scapegoat for all the frustrations accumulated in two years of Covid. “Lassitude and dissatisfaction linked to the virus have crystallized on the subject of the constraints weighing on the school, and therefore on me”, he confides to Paris Match. He has the unpleasant impression of having been caught “between a rock and a hard place”. In other words, to be forced to take health decisions that he does not control. “He is a cog in the system, recalls MP Bruno Bonnell. It is the Health Defense Council, led by the president, which sets the new protocols which must be put in place in forty-eight hours. Beyond the miscommunications he has admitted to, Blanquer is also paying for the others. A pillar of the government wonders: “Jean-Michel was too good a student. He should have said no to unenforceable rules. »

Emmanuel Macron has, in any case, undoubtedly blown a fuse. His minister emerges weakened from this sequence. “He was struck by lightning,” said one of his colleagues. The Ifop-Fiducial scoreboard for Paris Match shows that it has lost 6 favorable opinion points. More embarrassingly, Jean Castex’s announcements did not prevent the success of the January 13 mobilization, this “anti-Blanquer strike”, as many called it. “The anger was very centered on him,” confirms trade unionist Bruno Bobkiewicz. “He has a real credit deficit, worries a member of the majority. Even the rectors, although appointed by him, tell us: “We only have one problem, it’s the minister.” Admittedly, Jean-Michel Blanquer regained control by announcing the measures himself on the evening of the historic strike, but he received a blow to the head. As proof, during the meeting, Rue de Grenelle, “it was Jean Castex who led the debates”, confides the general secretary of the Sgen-CFDT, Catherine Nave-Bekhti, welcoming that the files are now also followed by Matignon. Many advances have been made: 8,000 additional reinforcements in National Education, delivery of 5 million FFP2 masks, bi-monthly meetings between the ministry and the trade unions, postponement of mid-CP evaluations and reflection on the holding of the tests of the Baccalaureate scheduled for March…

“We all perceived that the Minister of Education was more empathetic than usual. He even made progress on the issue of exams which was, for him, a casus belli, ”rejoices Bruno Bobkiewicz. The participants found him “tired”, even “exhausted” according to some. The next day, he lets go: “I’m not perfect, I make mistakes. I have no problem saying I’m sorry about certain things. This will not have been enough: eight trade unions, including the powerful FCPE, the first federation of parents of students, have called for new days of action, the last two Thursdays of January.

For the legislative elections, he is looking for a constituency

A few hours after his late mea culpa, Jean-Michel Blanquer accompanied Jean Castex to Lyon. He appeared in the background, tapping away at his phone, pausing to answer calls. “Oh! He is there, ”launched, reassured, Castex when he saw him. Lost in thought, the minister had been left behind by the delegation. Perhaps he was already in the aftermath, he who has just confided to the last executive office of La République en Marche that he was not a candidate for his own succession to the ministry.
Already in turmoil, the minister was overtaken last Monday by a new controversy. The Mediapart site revealed that Jean-Michel Blanquer gave, from Ibiza to the Balearic Islands, the controversial interview with the “Parisian” where he announced a few hours before the start of the school year the protocol applicable in schools. Nothing illegal of course, a Minister of Education is entitled to vacation. But a political clumsiness immediately exploited by the opponents, too happy to kill two birds with one stone by targeting the Macron-Blanquer couple. According to the “Parisian”, the minister would have married discreetly and in a small committee with the journalist Anna Cabana. When asked the question, Blanquer does not confirm and adds: “If you are asked, you will say that we are together for a very long time. »

Dirty sequence for the Minister of Profs who hoped to regain the advantage by defending his “very good record” soon on television against Éric Zemmour. Even if he urges the majority not to be intimidated and to value his action, “we are not counting on him for the campaign”, warns without taking a grain of salt a Macronist pillar. Politics, however, he took a liking to it. “I was not born in a cabbage,” Blanquer likes to reply when his lack of experience, even his naivety, is pointed out to him. Hardened by five years spent taming the “mammoth”, he is determined to go to the legislative battle. He started looking for a constituency in Île-de-France. For the moment, it is far from being won.

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