The surprise is significant, as the forecasts were leaning towards the upcoming appointment of François Bayrou to National Education. On Wednesday evening, the person himself announced that he would not join the government. Many already saw him there, in particular because of his recent statements suggesting that he “was available to take this risk”. But was François Bayrou, who was the host of the rue de Grenelle from 1993 to 1997, under the Balladur and Juppé governments, really the man for the job, capable of redressing the course of this immense liner in the grip of a crisis? real storm since the arrival of Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra?
The boss of MoDem has at least one thing in common with the latter: that of having alienated a good part of the teaching community very shortly after his arrival at the Rochechouart hotel on March 30, 1993. debate, already at this time, the place of private schools. The new minister then supported the reform of the Falloux law, the text of which, dated 1850, prohibits local authorities from contributing more than 10% to the operating expenses of private middle and high schools under contract. The idea? Uncapping this measure to increase the subsidies allocated to them. On January 13, 1994, the Constitutional Council ruled against part of the law. Which will not prevent the holding of a major demonstration in defense of secular schools, three days later, bringing together 600,000 to a million people. A false start which could have been fatal to François Bayrou.
“The problem, from there, was to bounce back and turn the page on this affair,” remembers Alain Boissinot, one of his former close ministerial colleagues. This senior official praises the “political sense” of the man who then launched major consultations with the trade union organizations of the time. “These led to what he called ‘a new contract for the school’, a set of relatively consensual measures on the basis of which we worked for the following three years,” he continues. “The Bayrou method was to trust the field, to propose measures rather than imposing them”, insists the man for whom his return to National Education would have “made it possible to heal recent wounds and find a form of serenity”.
“Minister of immobility”
What remains today of these famous 158 measures advocated at the time by François Bayrou to modernize and develop the education system? “On the political level, they were not followed up. There is almost nothing left, if anything at all,” asserts Christian Chevalier, former secretary general of SE-Unsa. For this union activist, who then held local functions, the great merit of François Bayrou was above all his openness to social dialogue. “A bit in the tradition of Jack Lang. We can say that in this he was a pioneer,” he continues. Where his opponents then qualified him as “minister of prudence and inaction”, accusing him of practicing “co-management with the unions”.
The passage of François Bayrou was not marked by the adoption of major structuring measures. But his former collaborators recall the few reforms to his credit such as that of the preparatory classes for the grandes écoles or the introduction of Latin in 5th grade and Greek in 3rd grade. “This extremely cultured classical scholar gave absolute priority to the French language,” recalls Dominique Antoine, former deputy director of his office. However, he had a global vision of the future of young people. he who introduced the compulsory internship in a 3rd year company.
At a time when the issue of respect for secularism in schools appears to be crucial, we remember that François Bayrou also had to deal with the question of the veil in schools which emerged with the Creil affair in 1989. 1994, faced with the multiplication of obstacles to secularism, the minister issued a circular prohibiting the wearing of “ostentatious religious symbols” within educational establishments. “It is to him that we owe this expression which subsequently became a legal formula (Editor’s note: taken up by the law of 2004)”, specifies Dominique Antoine who sees in him “a great republican, hailed by the era by all secular networks.” For the record, a certain Rachida Dati, recently appointed head of the Ministry of Culture, joined the ministry of François Bayrou in 1994. The latter appoints her as mission manager. His role ? Exercise a mediation function in the field and defuse conflicts related to the wearing of the veil between families and teachers.
During the negotiations of recent days, many of his former collaborators highlighted the “strong character” of François Bayrou. “I think that if he enters the government, it will not be to simply carry out the instructions of the Prime Minister,” confided Alain Boissinot at the start of the week. “The reforms recently launched in college have created extremely strong tensions in the educational world. There is no doubt, knowing him, that he will want to come back and change the measures advocated by Gabriel Attal,” he predicted. François Bayrou will not have the opportunity.
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