PAP NDIAYE. It’s official and it’s a surprise. Historian Pap Ndiaye takes over from Jean-Michel Blanquer at the Ministry of National Education. Who is the new tenant on rue de Grenelle?
[Mis à jour le 20 mai 2022 à 21h03] “The world of teachers has always been mine. My mother was a professor of natural sciences at Bourg-la-Reine”, underlined the new Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, Friday, May 20, during the transfer of power with Jean-Michel Blanquer, rue de Grenelle. The historian also took the opportunity to pay tribute to all of his teachers. “I have a thought for all the teachers who educated me,” he said, assuring: “I am a pure product of Republican meritocracy.”
Surprise of this government, Pap Ndiaye, whose appointment has already caused a lot of ink to flow, will have to meet many challenges. The task promises to be particularly difficult. “This function [de ministre] is not just a man’s business. It is that of the Republic. I approach this task with modesty and with all the intelligent goodwill that is mine”, he confided, affirming that “all [s]he forces are at the service of the youth of this beautiful country, of this beautiful ministry, of life, of France”.
A Minister of National Education already under fire from critics
The appointment of Pap Ndiaye to the Ministry of National Education did not please everyone on Friday, May 20. On the extreme right of the political spectrum in particular, criticism was quick to fuse. Marine Le Pen was the first to castigate the appointment of an “assumed indigenist”, while the spokesperson for the National Rally, Julien Odoul, deplored the arrival of an “immigrationist activist”. “This appointment goes beyond the bounds of provocation,” he added.
Same story on the side of Reconquest!. “Emmanuel Macron had said that we had to deconstruct the History of France. Pap Ndiaye will take care of it”, unzipped without wasting time Eric Zemmour, when the vice-president of the party, Guillaume Peltier, got annoyed: “Macron’s government? The clan of careerists. With a premium on leftism embodied by the new Minister of National Education: Pap Ndiaye, the promoter of minorities and migrants.”
Critics to which the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, did not fail to respond, during her interview on the set of 20 Hours of TF1, Friday, May 20. Denouncing “caricatural” attacks, the new tenant of Matignon defended the fact that “Pap Ndiaye [soit] there because he shares with Jean-Michel Blanquer the objective of offering our children excellence and equal opportunities”.
Pap Ndiaye, the surprise of the Borne government
No rumor had seen the appointment of Pap Ndiaye as Minister of Education coming, all speculation was directed towards politicians, in particular ministers already in office, including Gabriel Attal. The first clues about Jean-Michel Blanquer’s successor suggested that the Head of State was looking for a more political than technical profile, but Pap Ndiaye, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud and the École des Hautes studies in social sciences does not include any political experience in his CV. On the other hand, he is a regular in the education system, he who works as a professor at Sciences Po Paris in addition to his role as general director of the Palais de la Porte Dorée and the Museum of the History of Immigration.
The appointment of Pap Ndiaye as head of the Ministry of National Education is part of Emmanuel Macron’s desire to form a government representing the “renewal” of his policy, promising to breathe a “new breath” and to found “a new method” to meet the expectations of the French according to comments made during the presidential campaign.
Who is Pap Ndiaye, new Minister of National Education?
It is a name that no one had thought of and which created a surprise when the new government was announced. Pap Ndiaye does not shine on the political scene, he is rather a man of knowledge, an academic par excellence and a history buff. History is also his job, historian and associate professor, Pap Ndiaye teaches social history courses at Sciences Po Paris but he is also, since the year 2021, the general manager of the Palais de la Porte Dorée. and the Museum of the History of Immigration. His academic career was brilliant, the man graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud and obtained a doctorate from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Ehess). In particular, he went to the United States for five years, from 1991 to 1996, to write a theme on social history and minorities, his two specialties.
Pap Ndiaye has always evolved in a cocoon where knowledge and learning were paramount, his father being a Senegalese engineer and his mother a French natural science teacher. Born in Antony in 1965, in the Hauts-de-Seine, he obtained his baccalaureate at the Lycée Lakanal de Sceaux and immediately went to a literary preparatory class at the prestigious Parisian Lycée Henri IV.
If the name of Pap Ndiaye is not associated with the political world, the man remains very committed, rather on the left, and is the author of several forums in theObs and the world in which he addresses the behavior of society in the face of police violence or racial issues as reported by the Figaro Student. Now at the head of the Ministry of National Education, Pap Ndiaye will be more likely to explain himself publicly mainly about the reform of the education system planned by Emmanuel Macron, and the mission promises to be colossal. One of the first projects of the Minister of Education should be the reintroduction of mathematics in the common core in high school.
Functions, address… What is the role of the Minister of National Education?
The Minister of Education, in its short form, is actually the head of National Education, Youth and Sports. He is the referent of all government policies with regard to “youth within and outside the school environment, everyone’s access to knowledge, to associative and sporting life and to the development of pre-elementary, elementary education. and secondary”, specifies the government website.
The school, from kindergarten to high school, remains the most important project of the ministry. It governs the rules, defines the training paths, the content of the programs, but also the organization of the examinations which are the patent and the baccalaureate among others. The Minister of Education is the big boss of teachers whose training, recruitment and distribution he manages throughout France, despite the sometimes tense relations between teaching professionals and the minister, as evidenced by the particularly eventful mandate of Jean-Michel Blanquer.
Among the major projects awaiting the future Minister of National Education, there is the increase in teachers’ salaries, the recruitment of good candidates when their number in relation to the places available has been reduced in recent times, the college (duplication of 6th grade classes, introduction of manual and practical education as well as digital education), the raising of the level of French students, or even the reform of the vocational high school.
Like all ministries, National Education is also a multi-billion dollar portfolio. Among the main items of State expenditure, the ministry has one of the largest budgets: 55.2 billion euros for the year 2022. Colossal resources which are used to operate the education system and are managed from the Hôtel de Rochechouart, which houses the premises of the Ministry of National Education at 110 rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.
Jean-Michel Blanquer is not reappointed to National Education
By holding the role of Minister of National Education for five years, Jean-Michel Blanquer broke the ministry’s longevity record. Before him, Christian Fouchet had spent four years at 110 rue de Grenelle, from 1962 to 1967. unions have regularly castigated discussions “at a standstill” with politics. Too many events have marked the mandate of Jean-Michel Blanquer and mean that the minister does not return for a second mandate in National Education: the reform of the baccalaureate first with the introduction of continuous assessment at the exam, but also the difficulties encountered to adapt the school during the two years of the Covid-19 epidemic, the repeated but never satisfactory changes in health protocols and finally this escapade to Ibiza at a time when National Education was going through a crisis.
Faced with all this turbulence, the technical profile of Jean-Michel Blanquer is not enough to stay. However, as soon as he arrived in government, the minister knew the workings of National Education. He was rector of two academies, that of Guyana in 2004 and that of Créteil in 2007, and in the meantime he held a first position in the government: deputy director of the cabinet of the Minister of National Education, Higher Education and of Research in 2006. Before his arrival at the head of the Ministry of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer was also Director General of School Education in 2009 then Director of the Graduate School of Economics and Commercial Sciences (Essec ) from 2013 until 2017.
Who are the previous Ministers of National Education?
Called Ministry of National Education since June 3, 1932 under the presidency of Albert Lebrun, then under the Third Republic, this administration has seen a good number of ministers. However, during Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, Jean-Michel Blanquer remained in office for five years. A longevity record. But who were his predecessors?
- François Bayrou (May 18, 1995 – June 2, 1997)
- Claude Allègre (June 4, 1997 – March 27, 2000)
- Jack Lang (March 27, 2000 – May 6, 2002)
- Luc Ferry (May 7, 2002 – March 30, 2004)
- François Fillon (March 31, 2004 – May 31, 2005)
- Gilles de Robien (June 2, 2005 – May 15, 2007)
- Xavier Darcos (June 18, 2007 – June 23, 2009)
- Luc Chatel (June 23, 2009 – May 10, 2012)
- Vincent Peillon (May 16, 2012 – April 2, 2014)
- Benoît Hamon (April 2, 2014 – August 25, 2014)
- Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (August 26, 2014 – May 17, 2017)
- Jean-Michel Blanquer (May 17, 2017 – May 20, 2022)