The government will convene next week the four large groups of private crèches highlighted for their abuses and denounced in two recent investigative books, announced this Sunday, September 10, the Minister of Solidarity and Families, Aurore Bergé. “From next week”, the representatives of these four companies, Les Petits Chaperons rouge, Babilou, La Maison Bleue and People & Baby, “will be summoned to my office because I want to understand concretely what happened and above all, I want to have their commitments,” declared the minister on Europe 1/CNews.
In the coming days, it will also bring together “the prefects who act in the departments, asking them to cross-reference all the data available” to “identify establishments at risk” and allow “very targeted and very rapid” controls. “If some do not respect safety, then we will have to close them, and take responsibility for this towards parents,” warned the minister.
In the coming days, it will also bring together “the prefects who act in the departments, asking them to cross-reference all the data available” to “identify establishments at risk” and allow “very targeted and very rapid” controls. “If some do not respect safety, then we will have to close them, and take responsibility for it with parents,” he warned. The checks will take place “everywhere”, including in public nurseries, said Aurore Bergé. A report published last April by Igas “says that acts of mistreatment can also be individual acts, it is not the economic model which creates the mistreatment”, noted the minister.
An increase in the number of private nurseries
“Today, 20% of daycare centers are private (80,000 places), 80% on a public or associative model. But we have a massive increase in the number of private daycare centers, so we must understand what their economic model is in order to guarantee that their growth, their profits, do not come at the expense of our children,” she added.
Five months after this shocking report from Igas on the prevention of mistreatment in nurseries, two investigative books published this week (“The Price of the Cradle” and “Babyzness”) have shed harsh light on the way in which childcare operates. certain private for-profit structures. Rationed meal portions, timed treatments… “The price of the cradle” (Seuil), published on Friday, describes a “dehumanized” system based on the race for performance and filling. Released the day before, “Babyzness” (Robert Laffont) paints, through 200 testimonials, the same picture of a private sector essentially dominated by the four major groups mentioned above.
For its part, the federation of (private) crèche companies urged not to “cast opprobrium on an entire sector” and not to draw “generalities” from “exceptions”. The revelations about private crèches evoke the Orpea scandal revealed in the book “Les Fossoyeurs” in January 2022, detailing financial embezzlement and ill-treatment inflicted on residents and employees of the retirement home giant. Just as in the nursing home issue, the executive’s room for maneuver appears narrow in nurseries, as the sector is faced with a labor shortage, with almost half of establishments lacking staff.