The opposition requests his resignation for disparaging parents and teachers while the unions call a strike again in the sector
Several opposition politicians called on Tuesday for the resignation of the French Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, after the online newspaper ‘Mediapart’ revealed that when he announced the controversial anticovid protocol for schools after the return of Christmas, I was on vacation in Ibiza.
Blanquer did not make the new rules public through a press conference, as is usual, but in an interview with the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’ conducted on the 1st by telephone. The journalists were unaware that the minister was currently spending a few days off in Spain. The information was published on the afternoon of the 2nd on the newspaper’s website, a few hours before the return to school.
The way of communicating the new health protocol had already been highly criticized last week by teachers’ unions and some parent associations. The main reason is that it was done with little time in advance so that the centers could prepare before the return of the students.
The centrals called a strike in schools and institutes last week to protest the mismanagement of the health crisis and the chaos caused by the continuous changes in protocol. In eight days, there were three different criteria to deal with the wave of infections by the omicron variant.
Less than a hundred days before the presidential elections, the opposition took advantage of the controversy to criticize the government. «Instead of preparing with teachers and parents a return to school with covid, the minister organizes a media coup with his feet in the sand. This level of contempt and irresponsibility is unacceptable,” said environmentalist candidate Yannick Jadot, who demanded Blanquer’s resignation.
The minister is justified
“I regret the symbolism,” said the head of Education on Tuesday, who acknowledged that perhaps he should have chosen another destination for his vacation and not Ibiza, a party image for many French. “Do I have the right to take a few days of vacation? Were there any meetings or jobs during that period that I missed because of that? No. Would my decisions have been different if I had been somewhere else? Neither, “he added during the session of questions to the Government in the National Assembly.
“His political fault is not having gone on vacation, but not having done his homework on vacation by presenting, sooner and in a concerted manner, the health protocol,” Conservative deputy Virginie Duby-Muller reproached him.
Meanwhile, the teachers’ unions have called another strike for tomorrow, dissatisfied with the measures announced last week by the Government: five million FFP2 masks for teachers, more CO2 collectors in the classrooms and the contract for 8,000 reinforcement people in the centers.
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