The French Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, already strongly contested by teachers who reproach him for the management of Covid-19 at school, found himself further weakened on Tuesday with the revelation by the press that he was in Ibiza on the eve of the start of the school holidays.
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It was from this holiday resort that the minister unveiled the new health protocol for schools to the press, only the day before the start of the school year.
This way of communicating, via the press and a few hours before the resumption, had already been strongly criticized. The revelation by Mediapart that he was in Ibiza sparked an outcry in the left-wing opposition, who once again called for his resignation. The environmental candidate Yannick Jadot denounced in a tweet “an unacceptable level of contempt and irresponsibility”.
The teachers’ unions, indignant, for their part pointed to “a terrible symbol”.
“It’s awful. It widens the gap that already existed with the minister and his staff even more”, reacted to AFP Guislaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the first primary union.
A large part of the teachers observed a strike last Thursday in schools, colleges and high schools, to denounce the mess of health protocols, which have changed three times since the start of the school year in early January.
The executive recalls for his part that his management of the pandemic has made it possible to always keep schools open since the end of the first confinement in May 2020, unlike several other countries in Europe.
The Department for Education stressed that Mr Blanquer had “worked remotely” from Ibiza.
The minister was “in a private setting for 4 days of vacation”, “whether he was at a distance or not does not change anything”, added the ministry, recalling that members of the government are authorized to go on vacation “until two hours by plane from Paris.
“There is a rule that is fixed for the government with regard to vacations: you must be contactable at all times, at your task. I have no reason to think that this was not the case for Mr. Blanquer,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal told CNews on Tuesday.
A new day of action is scheduled for Thursday in National Education, a crisis that could weaken President Emmanuel Macron less than three months before the presidential election.