The French Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, already strongly contested by teachers who blame 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.
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 the Mediapart news site 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 on Twitter “an unacceptable level of contempt and irresponsibility”.
The teachers’ unions, indignant, for their part pointed to “a terrible symbol”. “It further widens the gap that already existed with the minister and his staff,” reacted Guislaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the first primary union.
A large part of the teachers had 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.
Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Blanquer said “regret the symbolism” of these holidays in Ibiza, during the session of questions to the government in the Assembly.
“It was perhaps a bit of a mistake”, he then added to the much-watched 8 p.m. television news on TF1, while considering that “if we look at things coldly, we should not all the days beating your guilt because the adversaries want to destabilize you”.
The French executive insists that its handling 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.
And the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, defended Mr. Blanquer on Tuesday, assuring that he had “respected” government instructions.
“I gave clear instructions: not to be more than two hours, two and a half hours from Paris and to be reachable at any time. Did Mr. Blanquer follow these instructions? The answer is yes,” he said.
In addition, the minister “went on vacation for a few days at a time when all schools, colleges and high schools were closed,” added Mr. Castex.
“Did the fact that Mr. Blanquer or certain colleagues went on vacation prevent us from making the decisions as soon as we had the necessary material and elements? The answer is no, the state apparatus has worked,” said the head of government.
This case comes before a new day of mobilization and strike in schools on Thursday, at the call of several teacher unions.
The latter, however, suffered a setback on Tuesday since the Parisian demonstration, declared outside the legal deadlines, was banned as such by the police headquarters. A decision deemed “unacceptable” by the CGT.
An average of more than 300,000 new cases per day
The daily number of new cases of COVID-19 has exceeded 300,000 on average over the past seven days in France, authorities announced on Tuesday.
This figure stood at 464,769 on Tuesday, against 102,144 the day before, according to data published by Public Health France. This brings the average over the past seven days to 309,433 daily cases, from 281,965 on January 11.
This calculation helps to smooth out the differences observed from one day to the next, often artificially created by data collection problems.
Critical care services, which receive the most serious cases, had 3,894 COVID-19 patients on Tuesday (including 366 new admissions), against 3,913 the day before and 3,969 on January 11.
The total number of hospitalized patients reached 26,593, of which 3,503 were admitted in 24 hours. On January 11, there were 23,371.
The epidemic has caused the death of 289 people in 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths in France since the start of the pandemic, almost two years ago, to 127,690.
In the field of vaccination, more than 53.6 million people have received at least one injection (79.6% of the total population) and more than 52.3 million are now fully vaccinated (i.e. 77.6% of the population). total population). Some 32.4 million people received a booster dose.