If private daycare centers are singled out in “Les Ogres”, the public sector would not be spared certain dysfunctions either.
In any case, this is what Céline Lemaire of the CGT Petite Enfance in Nice denounces: “Public nurseries are not necessarily free from all reproaches she said. For years, we have been alerting the public authorities to the abandonment of the sector.”
Insufficient salaries – “I have more than thirty years of career and I don’t even receive 2,000 euros” – lack of training, extended overtime hours to ensure the supervision rate, lack of staff.
For the union representative who works as a childcare assistant in a public daycare center in Nice, “There is not a structure in the City of Nice that functions normally. The teams, who give their all, are exhausted and many professionals, particularly auxiliaries and educators of young children, are choosing to leave this profession. “Last year, ten managers left, they were exhausted. They sometimes return to the hospital where salary increases were recently obtained. Not with us.”
According to her, there are around 40 vacant positions in the public crèches of the City of Nice, “but Mayor Christian Estrosi announced during our back-to-school day that there would be recruitment. We are waiting to see and we will be vigilant.”
Institutional mistreatment
“Institutional mistreatment”this is the word that Céline Lemaire puts on this observation.
“For the teams, but also for the children we have in charge. When, in the morning, you are alone with eight children walking and one needs his diaper changed. What are you doing? Are you leaving the other 7? Are you taking them? No, you are waiting for a colleague to arrive… These things should not exist in early childhood. It is for this reason that we have been calling for several years for the supervision rate to be increased and for there to be 1 adult for 5 children, whatever the age..”
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