The ministerial reshuffle has just been announced with the new constitution of the government of Elisabeth Borne. To succeed Jean-Michel Blanquer, it is the French historian Pap Ndiaye who has been chosen as the new Minister of National Education.
[Mise à jour du 20 mai 2022 à 17h09]. The cabinet reshuffle was announced this Friday, May 20, 2022 by the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler. Following the appointment ofElisabeth Borne as Prime Minister, the government chose to keep certain ministers in their post, such as Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy and Finance, Eric Dupond-Moretti at the Ministry of Justice, or Gérald Darmanin as Minister of Interior. Others will remain in the government, changing function. This is notably the case of Gabriel Attal, government spokesman replaced by Olivia Grégoire, who until then was Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy… But who will then replace Jean-Michel Blanquer who has retained his post as Minister of National Education and Youth for five years? “The transfer of power between Jean-Michel Blanquer and Pap Ndiaye will take place this Friday, May 20, 2022 at 6 p.m. at the Ministry of National Education, in the presence of the staff” specifies the ministry in a press release.
Who is Pap Ndiaye, the new Minister of National Education?
It is the French historian Pap Ndiaye, specializing in the social history of the United States and minorities who replaces the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer. Holder of a doctorate from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Pap Ndiaye was notably a lecturer, then a professor at Sciences Po, and finally director general of the Palais de la Porte-Dorée. The new Minister of National Education and brother of the writer Marie Ndiaye, is also the one who directed the Immigration History Museum. Pap Ndiaye was born in 1965 in Antony in the Hauts-de-Seine and grew up in the suburbs of Paris. Her father, Senegalese, is a renowned engineer in sub-Saharan Africa and her mother, French, from a family of farmers then became a professor of natural sciences in a college, raised her children alone. Pap Ndiaye is now the father of two children, whom he had with sociologist Jeanne Lazarus.
For him, the challenge of the post of Minister of Education is daunting, as students and teachers have been turned upside down in recent years by the Covid-19 crisis as well as the reform of the baccalaureate, which deserves, from the start of the school year, new adaptations, particularly with regard to the reintroduction of mathematics in the common core. In any case, Emmanuel Macron intends to promote a “new method” to better meet the expectations and needs of the French, especially since Jean-Michel Blanquer has been repeatedly criticized for some of his measures taken during this five-year term.