We explain the controversy surrounding the new Minister of National Education Amélie Oudéa-Castéra

La ministre de l'Education nationale et des Sports fait face à la colère du monde enseignant. MAXPPP – Vincent Isore

Since her comments on the private schooling of her three children, Amélie Oudea-Castéra has faced accusations of lies and is struggling to escape an increasingly inextricable situation. A look back at another very difficult day for the minister. 

Plunged into the turmoil of a controversy since her appointment as head of a super-ministry of National Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castera invited Monday to stop "personal attacks" against him, while calls for resignation are increasing in union and political ranks.

During her first trip last Friday alongside the former Minister of National Education Gabriel Attal, promoted to Prime Minister, in a college in Yvelines, the Minister of National Education, of Youth, Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games justified the private schooling of his three children, revealed by Mediapart, by the "package of hours not seriously replaced" in the audience.

The unions are outraged

She was targeting with her comments a public elementary school, located rue Littré in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in which her eldest son was briefly educated before being admitted to the # 39;s Stanislas private Catholic establishment, in the same district, which houses an elementary school, a middle school and a high school. Amélie Oudéa-Castera has three sons, born respectively in 2006, 2008 and 2011, all educated at "Stan".

"L'école publique à laquelle Amélie Oudéa-Castéra s'est attaquée, en mentant, c'est la base même de notre démocratie. Il y a une forme d'inconscience, de méconnaissance de notre histoire et de mépris de classe dans ses propos."

Polémique Oudéa-Castéra : @rglucks1 dans #CàVous pic.twitter.com/jljIDoRcRn

— C à vous (@cavousf5) January 15, 2024

The national education unions reacted strongly to these declarations, denouncing, for the Snes-FSU, the first secondary union, "lunar and provocative remarks against the public service of education and its staff, the FSU-SNUipp suggesting to the minister “budgeting for replacement positions”. Snalc, the national union of high schools, colleges, schools and higher education, for its part highlighted “an interesting story because of what it says about the abandonment of abandonment ;public school by our leaders.

Call for resignation"

The controversy, which continued to grow, also had the effect of relaunching the call for a strike in National Education on February 1 of ;an inter-union FSU, Fnec FP–FO, CGT Educ'Action and SUD education for “wages, against job cuts, against the implementation of forced reforms, for better working conditions".

La ministre de l’Education nationale doit démissionner.

On ne confie pas la lutte contre le séparatisme scolaire à une séparatiste !

Ma tribune dans @libe 👇🏻https://t.co/fVk2pyzZSD

— Alexis Corbière (@alexiscorbiere) January 15, 2024

The minister began meetings with teaching unions on Monday in a tense atmosphere. Representatives of Snes-FSU demanded, in vain, a "public apology" d'Amélie Oudéa-Castera and cut short the discussion in the face of the minister's refusal, the union's general secretary said on X (formerly Twitter). "We expressed the anger of the profession. (…) In response, no commitments to address our two priority projects: salaries and working conditions, wrote Sophie Vénétitay. Added to these criticisms were calls for resignation from the ranks of the far left and the far right.

The minister's son's teacher responds

Asked – by Matignon, according to several media – to put an end to this unwelcome entry into the matter for the Attal government, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra expressed on Saturday, in a written statement, her regrets at the decision. may have "hurt certain public education teachers".

L'affaire Oudéa-Castéra en dit long sur l'entre soi remarquable de la bourgeoisie française. Elle montre aussi son aversion pour l'école publique, d'autant plus profonde que, comme l'hôpital, elle n'y met plus les pieds.
👇👇👇https://t.co/AQqw8boHEt

— Nicolas Framont (@NicolasFramont) January 15, 2024

Far from dying down, the controversy was revived by an article published Sunday by Libération in which the former teacher of the minister's eldest son at the Littré school specifies that only the latter has was educated in the public establishment, six months in a small nursery section, and that she was never absent at that time. Claiming to be "personally attacked", this now retired teacher explains that the boy had been enrolled at Stanislas on the grounds that the Littré school had refused his early passage to the middle section . Responding daily, the minister reiterates her regrets and considers it necessary to "resolve this replacement problem" in the audience.

"I don't know if she lied"

Now accused of "lies", the minister remained on the defensive on Monday, emphasizing her refusal to go further in the area of ​​personal life and of privacy". "There were attacks to which I tried to respond with as much sincerity as possible and I think we need to close this chapter," she said declared to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to the Olympic village of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) alongside the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin.

"I believe in the school of the Republic, I believe in the public school, I believe that we must all have a lot of ambition for it' ;quot;, she added. The national secretary of the Communist Party (PCF), Fabien Roussel, said Monday on X that it was "time to resign" for the minister, while Manuel Bompard, coordinator of La France insoumise (LFI), deplored on franceinfo a "lie" which "disqualifies".

On the right of the political spectrum, the president of the National Rally (RN) denounced on Monday a government “stamped with the seal of lies”. "They spend their time deliberately lying like tooth pullers (…), that doesn't honor politics", launched Jordan Bardella during his wishes to the press. "I don't know if she lied, I'm just saying that she explained why her son was educated in the private sector", the new government spokesperson evaded on France Inter, Prisca Thévenot.

The doors are slamming at the ministry

The reception of union representatives in turn for bilateral meetings, usual during a change of minister, proved "constructive&quot ; but also “tense”, according to the minister's entourage. On the union side, disappointment dominates. The latest revelations suggest that she did not necessarily tell the whole truth so she was also asked the question of trust, Sophie Vénétitay told France Inter, who demanded a “public apology". The exchange lasted 1 hour 20 minutes before the union finally slammed the door. 

Finally, this Monday evening, an association of parents of students from the Littré school published an open letter in Libération, addressed to the Minister of ;National education to denounce "very general, very reductive and very stigmatizing remarks" which "were painfully and unfairly felt by all parents of students". The controversy is far from over for the brand new minister who must have hoped for a less chaotic start.