Already undermined by a very popular strike last week, Jean-Michel Blanquer is once again weakened by the revelations about his stay in Ibiza on the eve of the start of the school year in January.
The revelation by Mediapart of Jean-Michel Blanquer’s stay in Ibiza just before the start of the school year in January, when the health protocol was being decided in schools, weakens the Minister of Education already undermined by a very well-attended strike. The announcement of this new protocol, the day before the start of the school year in the daily Le Parisien, had aroused the exasperation of the teachers. They regretted having been informed late and through the press, in the midst of concern aroused by the Omicron wave.
The disorganization then created in the schools, with students having to multiply the tests and directors overwhelmed by administrative tasks, then the reduction of this protocol on several occasions, had led to a feeling of fed up among teachers and others. education personnel. A major strike followed on 13 January.
“The symbol of great casualness and great lightness”
Mediapart revealed on Monday evening that the minister was in Ibiza when he announced this controversial protocol, information confirmed by the ministry. “It’s terrible. It widens even more the gap that already existed with the minister and his staff,” reacted to AFP Guislaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the first primary union. “While he was in Ibiza, school principals received emails from parents whose child had Covid and who did not know how they were going to do the next day. And emails from colleagues who were positive for Covid” , she added. “We did not have a protocol that had been anticipated”.
It is “the symbol of a great casualness and a great lightness”, adds Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first union of the second degree (colleges, high schools). For Stéphane Crochet, secretary general of SE-Unsa, “this revelation is the illustration of the distance and the gap between the minister and the health reality”.
Mediapart’s revelations come before a new day of mobilization and strike in schools on Thursday, at the call of several unions, to demand in particular “strong responses” in the face of the “chaos” caused by the Covid crisis. “There is really a loss of legitimacy and credibility of this minister”, who “is no longer worthy of his function”, considers Guislaine David. “We will have to calm the anger of the teachers”.
The left calls for his resignation
On the side of the political class, the left is again demanding the resignation of the minister. “Too much is too much. Jean-Michel Blanquer must resign”, reacted the president of the LFI group to the National Assembly Mathilde Panot in a tweet. The environmental candidate for the presidential Yannick Jadot evoked a “level of contempt and irresponsibility (which) is not acceptable”. “The problem is not Ibiza, it is the dilettantism of this minister”, “his improvisation, his unpreparedness”, he estimated.
On the right, Othman Nasrou, vice-president of the Île-de-France Region and spokesperson for LR presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse, who had requested a postponement of the start of the school year in January, called on the minister to “s’ explain the circumstances and the reasons for this fiasco”.
Faced with these reactions, government spokesman Gabriel Attal contented himself with assuring that the minister was “at his task”. “There is a rule that is fixed for the government when it comes to holidays: you have to be reachable at all times, at your task. I have no reason to think that this was not the case for Mr. Blanquer” , he pointed out. “I remind you that if the health protocol was presented late, it is because the recommendations of the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) arrived on the evening of December 31,” he added.
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