In 2009, the new Minister of National Education founded The HELP Agency, a company specializing in training for domestic workers. On the company website, she provided “essentializing” advice to potential employers.
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“Sugar brioche, chocolate viennoise, soft raisin bread and fresh calamondin juice. It’s tempting, isn’t it? It tells you that your ‘helper’ [employée de maison] prepare you the same breakfast? If so, then see you in January!” In a message shared nearly 1,000 times on the social network Education was expatriated to Singapore.
The appointment of the former deputy for French people living abroad in the government of Michel Barnier had been criticized by unions for her lack of expertise in the educational field. Anne Genetet is today mocked by her detractors because of her CV: “Doing your neo-colonial business in the not-so-ethical domestic worker market in Singapore is really not crazy…” thus judges another Internet user on X. “It’s stratospheric” was also indignant by the environmentalist MP Sandrine Rousseau, still on the social network.
If there is nothing illegal about providing such training for domestic workers, the Minister of Education is criticized for having given essentializing and denigrating advice, sometimes amounting to class contempt.
A doctor by training, Anne Genetet emigrated to Singapore in 2005 with her partner and her four sons, according to her profession of faith for the early legislative elections in June. After consulting missions for the International SOS group, the minister founded The HELP Agency, a consulting company specializing in the training and recruitment of domestic staff for expatriates in Singapore, active from 2008 to 2019, according to an administrative document from the city-state. In 2017, Anne Genetet was elected deputy for the 11th constituency for French people living outside France.
On The HELP Agency website, now archived and that franceinfo was able to consult, Anne Genetet distills a series of advice for employers to “find [sa] best candidate” or even “manage [son] employed on a daily basis. In the recruitment section, the elected Macronist offers role-playing exercises that are complex to say the least. For example : “You wait for the children who are coming home from school on the school bus. The bus arrives. The 6-year-old is there, but the 10-year-old is not on the bus. [surveillante du bus] tells you she didn’t see it. What are you doing ?”
On the remuneration of domestic workers, Anne Genetet writes as follows: “paid leave” are not “neither obligatory nor recommended“. And the director of The HELP Agency clarified, however: “A ‘helper’ present at her employer in Singapore but unemployed because the employer has gone on vacation must necessarily receive a salary.” The expatriate also advises employers to assess the debt of potential domestic workers. “A candidate in debt is preoccupied with her work and will ask you for salary advances”she warns.
On her site, the new Minister of Education also relies on clichés supposed to explain the cultural differences between the West and Asia. “Avoid emotion and compassion”recommends Anne Genetet. “Do not make any negative remarks in front of a witness. (…) A ‘helper’ who feels humiliated becomes unmanageable; she will seek to change families”she warns. “After an experience in a Western family, the employee has gained confidence, already thinks she knows everything and can be difficult to manage, sometimes refusing to submit to your demands.decrees the former consultant, as if it were a generality.
Anne Genetet believes, conversely, that “Employees who have only known local families, Chinese for example, are often more flexible, more attentive to instructions and have for the most part developed a great sense of ‘Asian’ service.” A formulation which refers to the stereotype of the docile and needy Asian worker. “‘Yes M’am’ is nothing more than a refrain that expresses submission and respect”she writes again, arguing that domestic workers do not really express what they think.
“Beyond the expatriate community, these practices are specific to the white dominant classes who use immigrant or racialized labor: their attitudes will be essentialized and returned to their origins”, analyzes Alizé Delpierre, sociologist and researcher at the CNRS, author of Serving the rich And Domesticities.
“The origins of servants are objectified either by skin color, nationality or accent. Stereotypes are attributed to them.”
Alizé Delpierre, sociologistat franceinfo
Highlighting mutual cultural enrichment, Anne Genetet emphasizes that for the domestic, “discovering certain aspects of French culture, cuisine in particular, can become an asset for your future”. She also advises giving instructions to the servants by saying: “In our French culture, we do it like that.” According to the consultant, this allows “to impose a method as a respectable rite”.
“It is indicative of a hierarchy, which is part of a quasi-missionary and colonial continuity of supposed different and less refined ‘cultures’. There would be a French tradition superior to the others, which would have to be taught to their employees house.”
Alizé Delpierre, sociologistat franceinfo
On its Facebook page, whose publications span from 2012 to 2016, The HELP Agency highlights “helpers” proudly posing with their culinary preparation or their emergency care training certificate. Anne Genetet appears in one of these photos. Questioned by franceinfo, those close to the new minister responded that “the publications dating from 2013 absolutely do not reflect his commitment to Singapore”.
“By creating his company, his primary ambition was, on the one hand, to enable these people to emancipate themselves through their work and enable them to acquire additional skills through training funded directly by employers.”
Anne Genetet’s entourageat franceinfo
And to remember that Anne Genetet “worked with people in great distress, very often mistreated workers” by officiating as a doctor for Home, shelter for migrant workers, and Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), an NGO promoting fair treatment for migrants in Singapore.