The former Macronist member of the French Abroad who spoke on defense issues in the National Assembly, made her first field visit to the Gabriel-Havez college in Creil, in the Oise, which in 1989 was, the epicenter of the “headscarf affair” with the exclusion of three young veiled girls, the beginnings of four decades of controversy around secularism at school.
The minister spoke carefully with teachers and students about the various projects implemented in the establishment, on harassment, secularism or civil security.
Do not repeat the errors of Oudéa-Castéra
During this exercise, which was as detailed as it was scrutinized, she avoided the immediate departure of one of her predecessors Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who had justified the schooling of her children in a posh private establishment with “packages of “hours not seriously replaced” in the public, sparking an outcry.
Vilified since her appointment for her lack of knowledge of the educational world, the new minister, like “AOC”, had to face a first trial of disconnection, due to her past activity of consulting for expatriates recruiting domestic workers in Singapore in the 2010s.
Striving to be attentive, she launched an invitation to the ministry of TikToker SenseidesMots, author of a petition proposing a change in school schedules so that “the most demanding classes” take place “only in the morning”. which collected more than 300,000 signatures.
Invitation immediately postponed after the publication of old homophobic messages from the TikToker whose content was denounced by left-wing deputies such as LFI Rodrigo Arenas, who requested “the cancellation of this meeting”.
First hiccup Friday
Friday, during her first interview on RTL, the minister tripped herself up by announcing “a time of contemplation” for October 7, the anniversary of the unprecedented attack by Hamas against Israel , before the ministry backpedaled by specifying that it was a commemoration of the death of the killed teachers Dominique Bernard and Samuel Paty, planned for the following Monday.
“I’m starting to miss Amélie Oudéa-Castéra,” communist senator Pierre Ouzoulias, an education specialist, joked about X. “Same energy,” squeaked Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first secondary-level union, accompanying her message on X with a video where the former minister slides into the Seine.
Education in crisis
Since taking office, Anne Genetet has been walking on eggshells in an educational world in crisis, scalded by unprecedented ministerial instability with five ministers since the re-election of Emmanuel Macron in 2022.
Eager to embody stability and appeasement, she affirmed during the transfer of power with her predecessor Nicole Belloubet that she did not want to “change course” on educational policy.
She repeated it Thursday in front of the rectors: she “will not be the minister of the ‘big bang’”, promising “appeasement” and “stability”.
“Important projects have been opened in recent years and I am committed to seeing them through to completion,” she added, indicating in particular that she would resume the reform of initial teacher training, which had been put on hold since the resignation of the Attal government.
Minister under supervision?
“The course is set and kept. It’s still this little sentence which, in my opinion, sums up everything,” said Sophie Vénétitay, after a first meeting with Anne Genetet on Wednesday.
“She is a minister who is under supervision, who is under the close guard of Gabriel Attal and Emmanuel Macron to pursue the policies being pursued,” judges the trade unionist.
Anne Genetet, who has several ex-collaborators of Gabriel Attal in her team, confirmed on RTL “to be part of the education policy that the President of the Republic launched in 2017”.