Amélie Oudéa-Castéra’s first steps at the head of the “super ministry” of National Education, Youth, Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games were eventful. Friday, as soon as she was promoted, she went to a college in Yvelines alongside her predecessor, Gabriel Attalnow Prime Minister.
Questioned about the schooling of her three children at Stanislas, an elitist private establishment in the capital, she denounced “a frustration” and “the bundles of hours which were not seriously replaced” in a public school in the 6th arrondissement of Paris . Teachers’ unions strongly criticized these comments. Story of a controversy in four acts.
Act I: the minister’s children schooled at Stanislas
In an article published on January 12, the newspaper Mediapart reveals that the minister’s children go to school in Stanislas. A private Catholic establishment targeted, since February 2023, by an administrative investigation into accusations of homophobia and sexism which had been mentioned by several media, including The Express. In its investigation, Mediapart indicates that the minister’s three children, aged 13 to 18, “experienced single-sex classes at college, teachings that condemn homosexuality, abortion and the rapprochement between girls and boys. boys.”
Mediapart notes that the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) submitted a report in the summer of 2023 to Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Education, following an administrative investigation into the establishment. A report that the authorities refuse to make public. Asked about the possible conflict of interest that arises from the situation, the minister affirmed that “the report does not[était] not currently on [son] desk”.
Regarding her personal situation, the minister was keen to clarify the reasons for this schooling: “My eldest son, Vincent, started, like his mother, at public school [élémentaire] Littré [VIᵉ arrondissement de Paris]”, she explained, before evoking her “frustration” as well as that of her husband, who “saw lots of hours which were not seriously replaced”. The couple was “fed up, like hundreds of thousands of families who, at one point, made a choice to seek a different solution”, she defended herself, specifying that it was a “choice of proximity”, since they lived on rue Stanislas.
Act II: Apologies to the profession
The words of the new Minister of National Education immediately sparked an outcry within the educational community and its representatives. “These are provocative and scandalous remarks which certainly show the limits of a minister who, from her first outing, achieved the feat of scoring a goal against her camp,” criticized on Franceinfo Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the main secondary education union. “If replacements were not ensured at Littré, it is because there were thousands of replacement positions eliminated,” said the spokesperson for FSU-Snuip (the main teachers’ union). of schools), Guislaine David.
Faced with the bronca born from her explanations on the private schooling of her children, the new Minister of Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, tried on Saturday to reassure public teachers by promising them that she would “always be [leurs] sides”. “My comments may have offended certain public education teachers, which I regret”, she wrote in a written statement sent to AFP on Saturday, to debunk the first controversy of the Gabriel Attal era, caught by school, a “cause” that he took to Matignon.
Traveling to the Dijon University Hospital, Gabriel Attal denounced “a lot of hypocrisy” on the subject. “The minister spoke transparently about the choices she made […]. It is enough to exchange with French people, with parents of students, to understand that this question is an important issue”, underlined the one who said to have taken this subject “head-on”, for example ” by asking that teacher training now take place outside of class time.
Act III: the minister’s remarks denied by the ex-teacher
But Amélie Oudéa-Castéra’s defense of her children’s schooling at Stanislas due to unreplaced lesson times was weakened by her son’s former teacher, questioned by Release. According to the newspaper, the choice of the former tennis player would have been motivated more by a desire to make the eldest of the siblings skip a class, which the public establishment in which he ultimately only stayed for six months, had. denied.
“A lie that disqualifies her,” said the coordinator of France Insoumise, Manuel Bompard, on Franceinfo. “The days pass and the lies accumulate,” also reacted the boss of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, in a message on [était] time to resign”. Just like the environmentalist MP Sandrine Rousseau, who wrote on the same social network: “We must leave now Madam.”
For her part, “the Minister of National Education categorically denies the comments reported by Release“, his entourage informed AFP.
Act IV: the minister asks to “close the chapter of personal attacks”
The new Minister of Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, asked the press on Monday to “close the chapter of personal attacks”. “I believe in the school of the Republic, I believe in the public school, I believe that we must all have a lot of ambition for it,” assured the minister at the end of a visit to the Olympic village of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) alongside the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
“I do not want to go any further into the area of personal life and private life. There are attacks to which I have tried to respond with as much sincerity as possible. We must close this chapter of personal attacks and personal life,” said the minister.