“I am very happy to be able to have this new relief and I hope that we will gradually take steps”, said Jean-Michel Blanquer, the Minister of Education, invited Sunday February 13 in Political Questions on France Inter, franceinfo and Le Monde, concerning the passage of the health protocol from level 3 to level 2 in schools. The Minister has made no secret of his desire to go further “in several weeks”.
The mask should “most likely” no longer be mandatory for students in class by the “end of the school year”, says @jmblanquer#PolQuestions pic.twitter.com/jPzrcfpqaA
– France Inter (@franceinter) February 13, 2022
While children no longer have to wear the mask outside, “which is a very big change”Jean-Michel Blanquer considered that it is “eminently desirable that the mask can be removed from children”indoors, “as soon as possible”. “And that’s what will happen”, he promised. Asked about the possibility of this happening “in spring”, the minister replied “yes, in spring, it’s the right formula” after having already indicated that “this is likely to happen before the end of the school year”. “It’s my dearest wish” he assured while specifying that he “For this, it will be necessary to have crossed several levels of the health situation”.
For now, “we have the feeling that the 5th wave has its peak behind us and that the current drop in health figures allows us to have relative optimism”, said Jean-Michel Blanquer. According to him, “it’s a favorable situation” to relief.
On the issue of tests for students, whose protocol has been lightened from 3 tests to 1 test on D 2 for contact cases, Jean-Michel Blanquer acknowledged that this had represented “a lot of constraints for everyone” and “it was a cause of exhaustion for the principals and headmistresses, for the teachers and the parents”. “We said from December 15 that January would be terrible, we knew it, and we said it”continued the Minister of Education, congratulating himself on having “crossed the month of January” there where “closing the schools would have been the easy way out”.
“One of the challenges was to provide replacements [d’enseignants absents à cause du Covid-19], have we ensured it perfectly? No, of course, we had plenty of imperfections”he also acknowledged. “But you cannot, in times of extraordinary crisis, have public service operating requirements, exactly as if we were in normal times”justified Jean-Michel Blanquer.