Nicole Belloubet at National Education, a former rector to the rescue of public schools

Mired in controversies, she knew she was in the hot seat. Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, propelled to the head of the “super-ministry” of National Education, Youth, Sports, Olympic and Paralympic Games on January 11, loses the school portfolio, announced the Elysée , Thursday February 8. It only retains that of Sports, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. While rumors surrounding François Bayrou have circulated in recent days, Nicole Belloubet, former Minister of Justice (2017-2020), has finally been named the new boss of National Education. A profile, despite appearances, not so surprising.

University professor, doctor of public law and former member of the Constitutional Council, she was also rector of the academies of Limoges and Toulouse, between 1997 and 2005. Opposed to job cuts, at the time, in this last academy, Nicole Belloubet chose to slam the door. A staffing problem still relevant in 2024: according to the decisions consulted by franceinfo, there will be, first and second degrees combined, several dozen fewer positions in public education at the start of the next school year.

Now based on rue de Grenelle, Nicole Belloubet will have to prove to the National Education staff, who have just had two strikes in a row, that she still wishes to defend this public school.

Criticisms of private education

Proof that her involvement is not new, Nicole Belloubet submitted a report in 2002 in which she made 30 proposals for the high school. More recently, in 2016, the former rector published an article in the academic journal After tomorrow, entitled “Suppress the Ministry of National Education?”. A “provocation”writes the one who hits on the private school from the first lines.

“The inequalities that the French education system does not know how to correct are more and more glaring and those who criticize the current situation are forced to use pretexts or flee the public service to join the ranks of homogeneous classes in the ‘private education’, can we read. A position at odds with that of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, singled out for having educated her children in the conservative private institution Stanislas and having justified this choice by the absence of teachers, a version denied by Release.

In this text where she gives her vision of the education system, Nicole Belloubet also pleads for better remuneration for teachers: “To be creative, teachers must be considered executives in their status. This requires that they are involved, responsible and supported. Considered executives must be better paid.” A long-standing demand from teachers, heard again on Tuesday during demonstrations.

Another dissatisfaction on their part, to which Nicole Belloubet will have to respond : the level groups, in 6th and 5th grade, which should see the light of day at the start of the 2024 school year. No regulatory text has, for the moment, been published, but school leaders are already worried lack of means to put them in place.

On the same line as Macron and Attal?

While Gabriel Attal defends tooth and nail the return of uniform and authority in classrooms, Nicole Belloubet did not seem, in 2016, to completely agree. “Far from the nonsense about the restoration of authority or the wearing of the coat, those who are really confronted with educational tasks today understand the essential: we must leave the rigid framework of the lecture, allow time and ‘autonomy for young people’, she asserted.

Now Minister of National Education, what will be his position regarding these government priorities? Will it, moreover, be autonomous from the Prime Minister, but also from the President of the Republic, who has made school one of his reserved areas?

For Emmanuel Macron, the arrival of Nicole Belloubet politically counterbalances this new government marked on the right, with, among others, Rachida Dati and Catherine Vautrin or the arrival of Franck Riester in Foreign Trade. The new Minister of National Education joined the Socialist Party (PS) in 1983 and held the position of deputy mayor of Toulouse (2008-2010), then vice-president of the Occitanie Region (2010-2013). With a favorite file: education, higher education and research.

As Keeper of the Seals, in the government of Edouard Philippe (2017-2020), during Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, she was also accused of making comments on current legal cases, such as on the Mila affair. She also attracted the wrath of the legal world with her justice reform. Teachers are now hoping for stability, after two changes of minister in seven months, and strong measures for public schools.