Amélie Oudéa-Castéra affirmed that the choice to send her children to private school was linked to the absences of teachers in the public sector. A version categorically refuted by the former teacher of the son of the Minister of National Education, at the Littré elementary school in Paris.
Newly appointed Minister of National Education, Youth, Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra already finds herself in turmoil. As a reminder, she created the first controversy of the new government of Gabriel Attal. During her first trip, Friday January 12, to a college in Yvelines, the minister explained that she would place her children in a private establishment, the Parisian Stanislas College, renowned for its great conservatism.
She justified her choice by the “frustration” that she and her husband had in the face of “lots of hours not seriously replaced” in the public school that her children previously attended. The day after her speech which sparked strong criticism, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said she “regretted” her comments which “may have hurt some public education teachers”. Since then, the controversy has not run out of steam, quite the contrary. New elements have been revealed by our colleagues at Libération.
Could the new Minister of Education have lied? One thing is certain, the former teacher of the minister’s son assured in Libération that she was never absent during the six months of the child’s public schooling. “I feel personally attacked. I was not absent and even if that were the case, we were always replaced. There has never been a replacement problem at Littré which is a small, highly rated school” , explains Florence, a retired teacher. Still according to our colleagues at Libération, only the minister’s eldest son was educated in the public sector, lasting only 6 months in a small nursery section.
Amélie Oudéa-Castera maintains her version on her side. But the private preference of the minister and her husband could be linked to another reason according to the teacher’s testimony: the little boy’s move to the next class. The teacher was opposed to it because of the age of the child who was not yet four years old and according to her it was because the Stanislas establishment agreed to enroll the child in the higher level that Amélie Oudéa-Castera favored the private establishment.
This Monday, January 15, government spokesperson Prisca Thévenot was questioned about this affair which has shaken Macronie since January 12. “I don’t know if she lied,” she conceded. “I’m telling you this as a government spokesperson today, but I could tell you this as a former MP or as a committed everyday activist: I would like us to answer the question of how we works on non-replaced hours. I myself am a mother of two children, seven and nine years old and yes, we are faced with these non-replaced hours” she added.
For Manuel Bompard, MP and coordinator of France Insoumise, the legitimacy of the new Minister of National Education is in doubt: “it was a lie which disqualifies her from continuing to occupy this function” insisted the insoumise on franceinfo this Monday. Jean-Philippe Tanguy (RN deputy for the Somme) speaks to him about a “flagrant crime of lying” at the RMC microphone.
According to a report from the Department of Evaluation, Foresight and Performance (Depp) carried out for the year 2020-2021, around 8.8% of course hours would not have been provided, on average. , in the second degree. The Court of Auditors warns in a report published in 2021 about the “difficulties arising from short-term absences” which represent nearly 2.5 million hours during the 2018-2019 school year in secondary education, ” of which only a little over 500,000 are replaced.”?
