the essential
After a difficult start at the Ministry of National Education, Elisabeth Borne is getting into tough times and will have to manage several delicate issues, first and foremost the start of the school year in Mayotte.
Like her predecessor Anne Genetet, Elisabeth Borne, new Minister of National Education, must put up with a 2024-2025 school year prepared by another, in this case, Nicole Belloubet. However, on this Monday of resumption after the winter holidays, the former Prime Minister will very quickly have to delve into multiple sensitive issues and erase some rather calamitous first steps.
Controversy in Mayotte
During her transfer of power, the number 2 in the government admitted to not being “a specialist in these subjects” in National Education. Enough to surprise the educational community which welcomes its 4e minister in one year. Elisabeth Borne then sparked a heated controversy during her trip to Mayotte, the French island ravaged by a cyclone.
Filmed being questioned by two teachers who explained to her that they had absolutely not seen the promised state aid, contrary to what she claimed, Ms. Borne cut the exchange short and turned his back to his interlocutors before leaving. Elisabeth Borne may have invoked a truncated sequence – which was not the case – these images were devastating.
Mayotte is, however, the first of the files that it will have to manage to organize the return to the island. The “Mayotte standing” plan presented on site by Prime Minister François Bayrou – himself a former Minister of National Education – includes a strong component on education. “School tents” were to be set up last week before the start of the school year scheduled for January 13, “according to appropriate arrangements, establishment by establishment”. A teacher attractiveness and retention plan was also announced.
Skepticism from teachers unions
However, measures considered too late and insufficient by the sector. Jean-Rémi Girard, president of Snalc (colleges and high schools), believed that the start of the school year was announced “before even asking ourselves if we could and how we could do it”: “colleagues no longer have homes, they They should be able to find accommodation before returning to teach. Another problem: many educational establishments have been damaged.
“Nothing has been said about the procedures for reopening school buildings in complete safety, colleagues report to us that in certain colleges the ceiling is soaked with water,” underlined Sophie Venetitay, general secretary of SNES-FSU, the first union of secondary education. “National Education has not given itself the means to inventory students, staff and the state of school buildings,” she laments. According to the unions, only a third of the island's teachers have been contacted since the cyclone.
“Our objective is to prepare for the reception of students by adapting to the realities of each school and establishment so that they find the essential framework to learn and flourish in complete safety”, indicated the minister, Thursday January 2, following a meeting of a ministerial crisis unit with the rector of Mayotte and his teams.
A host of emergencies
But alongside the Mayotte emergency, Élisabeth Borne will have to decide on other crucial issues, first and foremost Gabriel Attal's controversial reform on the “clash of knowledge. » Maintained by Anne Genetet, close to Mr. Attal, in 6e et 5e but abandoned in 4e et 3ewhat will become of the much criticized “level groups”? They are surrounded by the Council of State which annulled the decree which founded them and by the country's budgetary constraints.
Second urgent file, the anticipated mathematics test for second year students announced for June 2026 by Anne Genetet but without the implementation modalities and in particular the coefficient of this test which could impact that of the other tests. Another subject, politically sensitive: the education program for emotional, relational and sexual life (Evars) which was planned for the start of the 2024 school year and which is the subject of criticism on the right and the far right. Aurore Bergé, Minister for Gender Equality, spoke about it with Ms. Borne and ensures that it is a “priority” for her.
Elisabeth Borne will be able to entrust to her delegate minister Philippe Baptiste several files concerning higher education such as the worrying deficits of universities, the expected creation for 2026 of a “quality label” to regulate the jungle of private training or the reform of scholarships without ceases to be postponed.
And above all, Elisabeth Borne will have to prepare for “her” return to school in 2025 and deal with the explosive school map which, each year, provokes an outcry among certain elected officials, particularly in rural areas. This will be the real baptism of fire for Elisabeth Borne… if the Bayrou government is still in place.
