The holidays of the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer in Ibiza when he gave an interview to the Parisian to unveil the health protocol, published the day before the start of the new school year in January, caused a scandal. It was Médiapart who revealed it on Monday [article payant]. “For the executive, it’s a nightmare” 80 days before the presidential election, analyzes the professor at Sciences Po and CEO of MCBG Conseil Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet on Tuesday January 18 on franceinfo. He nevertheless thinks that the minister will only be forced to resign if this has a negative impact in the polls on voting intentions.
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franceinfo: Why is Jean-Michel Blanquer’s vacation in Ibiza going so badly with the teaching community?
It paints a pretty disastrous picture of politics because it happens around the same time as the Boris Johnson affair in London, which is a bit of a similar affair. The British Prime Minister has been accused of having parties every Friday during the confinement.
“There is a feeling of a double standard, that is to say a population that is really asked for a lot of effort and ministers who, in this case, are on vacation and are actually disconnected of the efforts they ask of the population.”
Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, professor at Sciences Poat franceinfo
It is all the more painful for the school community – all the same 20 million people – to whom a protocol was thrown in a way on the Monday morning of the start of the school year. We saw people in tears, school principals in tears on Radio France and government spokesman Gabriel Attal had to answer them. We have seen that Prime Minister Jean Castex had been forced to clear up the situation at 8 p.m. on France 2 and had even been taken over by the journalist who accused him of being on the third protocol. Under these conditions, everyone would have preferred the minister to be at his office in Paris and not on vacation in Ibiza. The symbol of Ibiza is so powerful, it reminds of David Guetta, it reminds of the party, it reminds of a party of so rich. This symbol is so strong that it will be difficult to counter it like that.
Do you think there is currently a Jean-Michel Blanquer problem?
There is a Jean-Michel Blanquer problem, which has been identified for several weeks already, since the start of the school year was a real disaster from an image point of view in any case, from a communication point of view. But what to do 83 days before the presidential election? If you remove a minister, you kind of admit a problem, you weaken yourself and give the opposition weapons to attack you. If you don’t get him out, you live with a thorn in your side, but somehow he stays long before the ballot. (…) The usual defense of the executive since 2017 is “I assume”, so it is not to weaken by recognizing an error, not to have a minister resign in the midst of a crisis. We have to see how long it is tenable. At the Élysée, they will closely watch the polls and the evolution of the electorate, in particular on the right, which risks being quite sensitive to this controversy.
Yet calls for resignation are already increasing. Is this the game of politics?
Yes, it’s the rule and then, between us, it’s quite normal given the case in question that there is a request for a sanction. It recalls the case of Jean-François Mattéi during the heat wave of 2003. He was the Minister of Health at the time, there was a heat wave which killed 15,000 people in the country and had welcomed the cameras of TF1 in duplex from his vacation home and in polo, it had caused a fairly understandable scandal and it had cost him his political career. So yes, a minister can jump on a case like this. It is quite logical that the opposition is asking for it. Afterwards, it’s a question of the balance of power and, once again, we are 80 days away from the election so, for the executive, it’s a nightmare. What Emmanuel Macron does, in general, is to refuse to give in to pressure. Remember in the Alexandre Benalla case, he even said that he would have to come and get him to question the situation of his adviser. In general, he reacts to pressure by holding his ground and not moving from his position. There, it will really depend on the evolution of the electorate.
“If they find that the situation is slipping and risks slipping away from them, perhaps they will let go of Jean-Michel Blanquer, as a pledge to the electorate. If the figures are relatively good and it has little impact, Jean-Michel Blanquer should be fine.”
Philippe Moreau-Chevroletat franceinfo
Unfortunately, we are more in this type of calculation in the election campaign.