The “mister education” of the National Rally clarified, in an interview with “Echos”, the party’s priorities in terms of education, while a petition from executives pledging to disobey in the event of the arrival of the extreme right in power sees its counter climb.
The National Rally lifts the veil on its proposals for schools. While Marine Le Pen indicated, in an interview with Figaro last week, that all of its commitments for the 2022 presidential election would not necessarily be taken up for the legislative elections (“it’s neither all nor nothing”), the RN education gentleman detailed on Friday June 21 the measures that the party intended to put in place if it came to power at the end of the early legislative elections. At the same time, a petition from National Education executives committing to “disobey” if the RN comes to power, its signature counter increases continuously.
In an interview with Echos, Roger Chudeau, outgoing MP for Loir-et-Cher who has held various positions within National Education (teacher, principal, inspector, ministerial advisor, etc.), affirms that wearing the veil will be prohibited for women accompanying school outings. A measure fantasized about by the far right for a long time, which would in fact make it difficult to organize these activities in certain establishments, where many mothers are veiled and involved in school life.
In order to “restore authority”, favorite of the right and the far right, the RN intends to send disruptive students to specialized centers where they would complete their entire education, until they turn 16, “without the possibility of returning to a normal establishment”. Objective: to guide them “as soon as possible” towards the labor market. If they are the cause of further disruption in these structures, they will go to closed educational centers “by court decision”, write the echoes.
Wearing a uniform remains a goal but will not be deployed for several years. In all classrooms, a map of France and a timeline retracing “the national narrative, from Clovis or Vercingétorix to the present day”.
Programs adapted to REP+
In favor of early guidance, the National Rally plans to impose a national exam in CM2, at the end of which students who fail will repeat a year or be sent to “sixth of adaptation”. “The single college is over!” proclaims Roger Chudeau. In front of Medef on Thursday, Jordan Bardella assumed: “We intend to replace the single college with a modular college which will direct students earlier and more quickly towards professional sectors which are today unfairly devalued.”
Roger Chudeau indicates to Echos that the Priority Education Networks (REP) will be abolished, with only the Reinforced Priority Education Networks (REP+) remaining. Students from these particularly disadvantaged areas would no longer necessarily benefit from the same teaching as their peers, since establishments could “adapt the programs, increase the timetables of fundamental disciplines”. Social workers, school nurses, and even speech therapists would be assigned there as a priority.
The RN finally plans to remove the “Blanquer baccalaureate”, organized by specialties, to reintroduce modernized series at the start of the 2025 school year. Also gone is the “teacher pact”, which consists of entrusting teachers with additional missions, such as replacing teachers. short term, for a bonus. Instead, teachers would be required to replace their absent colleagues. “We will be without weakness on this subject,” assures Roger Chudeau. As for the “shock of knowledge” reform, which notably plans to establish level groups in French and maths in middle school, “we are going to abolish it as a public policy and stop corporatizing teachers”, he said. However, he specifies, the organization of groups would not really disappear since it would be in the hands of establishments and teachers.
“Teaching in opposition to the republican values which underpin our professions”
These details will certainly not fail to reassure National Education executives engaged in a fight against the values of the RN. In a petition launched on June 14 and which has exceeded 800 signatures, heads of establishments, inspectors and general inspectors write: “Tomorrow, perhaps, our next minister from [des rangs de l’extrême droite] will require our executives to apply directives, implement policies or organize education in opposition to the republican values which underpin our professions and justify our commitments. We will not accept it. In conscience and responsibility, we will not obey.”
The approach is rare: executives, responsible for implementing government guidelines, usually adhere to a strict duty of reserve, regardless of the political side of the power in place. “Because we serve the State, we declare today that none of us will apply measures that would contravene the values of the Republic, they write again. We say it now before it is too late, before our school is misused, exploited and serves a disastrous political project.”
