“This is incredible!”: Udea-Caster minister at the center of controversy over her children’s education

The barely appointed education minister, Amelie Udea-Castera, faced her first scandal on Friday. During her first trip as education minister, she was questioned about her decision to transfer her children from the public sector to the private one, at Stanislaus Catholic High School (Paris), which was subject to an administrative investigation following the Mediapart revelations.

Her son attended the public school of Littre (Paris), but “taking into account the number of hours that were not seriously replaced”, she and her husband decided to place him in Stanislaus. The couple were “fed up, just like hundreds of thousands of families who at some point opted for a different solution,” she defended. An answer that teachers unions didn’t like at all.

“She brought public schools into disrepute.”

“This is incredible!” written on X (formerly Twitter), CGT Education. “Who is to blame if there are unreplaced watches in the public??? This is your policy of job cuts and gifts to the private sector! “, launched by the union, which calls this speech “pathetic and undignified.”

Sophie Venetite, Secretary General of Snes-BSS, also condemned “lunar and provocative statements addressed to the public education service and its employees.” This “shows the limitations of a minister who, from her first appearance, achieved the feat of scoring an own goal,” she added on the France info website, “she simply discredited a public school, although she is its minister. »

As for the union Unsa Education, it “will not fail to quickly remind the minister that his main subject must be public schools, the only school for everyone and for everyone”, said its Secretary General Elizabeth Allen-Moreno..

“We have been warning for years about the difficulties of replacing teachers,” Ekaterina Naveh-Bekhti regrets in a series of tweets, Secretary General of Sgen-CFDT, “if school is a priority, the minister will have to worry about the well-being of those who do it every day.” Along the way, she reminds that the minister’s remarks point to another important issue: the lack of social diversity in the school.

In the opposition, these comments also caused a strong reaction. “For seven years they were in power, for seven years they did nothing to restore the school of the Republic. And today they are offended by the dilapidation of public education, as if they are not responsible for it,” she was indignant. on X, leader of RN deputies Marine Le Pen. THAT Socialist Party Chairman Olivier Faure also judged “mind-blowing” comments from the minister.

“Macron’s reputation for national education is best summed up by his new minister… But how can you be minister of national education and have such disdain for public schools? “, reacted Boris Vallo, president of the socialist group in the Assembly. The head of the Insoumis parliamentary corps, Matilda Pano, presented “a brilliant presentation of what constitutes Macroni’s program (…), accepted by the minister with a smile and frightening cynicism.”

Academy rector arrested

Several trade unions also spoke out in defense of the Littre public school from which the minister’s children were removed. “If replacements have not been provided in Littre, it is because thousands of replacement positions have been eliminated,” he said for his part. SNUipp-FSU representative Ghislaine David.

Insoumis MP Rodrigo Arenas, former co-president The Federation of Parents of FCPE Students, for their part, said to contact the rector of the Paris Academy “to check the offensive statements made by the Minister of National Education against” this educational institution.

SNES of the former USSR published an open letter to the rector of the Paris Academy, in which it “gives all its support to the colleagues of these institutions who feel despised.” “Paris students are safe in our public middle and high schools, receiving a quality education there thanks to the dedication of the teaching teams and despite the reduction in resources to which they are victims,” the union adds.