Anne Genetet was appointed Minister of National Education for the Barnier government. She assured that “the ship will not change course”.
This Monday took place the handover ceremony between Nicole Belloubet and Anne Genetet for the position of Minister of National Education. Anne Genetet was, in fact, appointed for this position this Saturday, September 21, while other names were mentioned such as that of the Ensemble du Nord MP Violette Spillebout or that of Rachida Dati. Her profile would have been defended by Gabriel Attal, who had a short stint in this ministry.
“I am aware that I am a link in a human chain, made up of more than 1.3 million women and men who get up every day to keep the promise of school alive,” declared this Monday during the handover of power the woman who is becoming the sixth minister in seven years on rue Grenelle, after thanking her predecessor for the start of the school year which she considered “successful.”
Anne Genetet also presented her objectives for this position, assuring that “the ship will not change course”: “A movement has been launched, around strong ambitions such as raising the level of our students, the demands of our teaching, but also respect for our teachers, their authority and that of the Republic, and the well-being of our students and our staff”. She also places emphasis on “student success”.
She summed up her ambitions as follows: “This is what I will focus on: preserving the school, protecting our students, building a space of serenity and stability (…) What I propose to you can therefore be summed up in a few words. Humbly taking up together the challenges of the school so that it can finally and for a long time reconnect with its primary mission: forging Republicans, building destinies, bringing happiness”. Major projects await the new minister: teacher remuneration, the crisis of attractiveness of the profession, the question of school uniforms, level groups or even the subject of school diversity.
A course focused on defense and diplomacy
Anne Genetet’s choice for the post of Minister of National Education and Youth may come as a surprise given her political career, which is more focused on international affairs. She is a figure on the issues of French people abroad, of whom she has been a member of parliament since 2017. Aged 61, a medical journalist after studying medicine, she lived in Singapore for a long time. Some will see this as a sign since the Singaporean school system is regularly perceived as one of the best in the world, celebrated in particular in the PISA ranking or for its teaching of mathematics, the famous “Singapore method”. In 2022, she nevertheless moved closer to the subject of education by being rapporteur in the National Assembly of the bill on the evolution of “the governance of the Agency for French Education Abroad” and the creation of “regional training institutes”.
Anne Genetet also wanted to highlight her educational background. “I am a public school girl, from start to finish, from school to university,” she reminded AFP, a statement that contrasts with Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who had a short stint in this position due to a controversy over her children’s private education.
A rejection by the unions
The MP will therefore have to make her place within this new government, especially since she had been critical of the Republicans, who will nevertheless surround her and even very closely, since the Minister Delegate in charge of educational success and professional education is the LR MP Alexandre Portier. “The LR never wanted to work with us, it’s not for lack of reaching out to them, they hit us,” she had, for example, launched on the BFMTV set on Friday, September 20. She had also called for vigilance in the face of the probable nomination of Bruno Retailleau, who was finally chosen for the Interior.
This choice was also poorly received by the teachers’ unions. According to Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, “there is no good point in this profile, it looks like a casting error in view of the stakes for the school”. The same goes for Elisabeth Allain-Moreno, general secretary of SE-Unsa, who believes that Anne Genetet “does not know much, neither near nor far, about the school and the education system, this worries us a lot”. Guislaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, for her part, deplored this appointment, considering the minister to be a “clone of Gabriel Attal”.