Nicolas Sarkozy's remarks shock the left and the unions

The former President of the Republic spoke as part of the “Meetings of the Future”, in Saint-Raphaël (Var), broadcast by BFMTV.

He was giving a conference on “the future of France”. Nicolas Sarkozy did not go unnoticed with his comments on teachers, Friday November 8, during the “Meetings of the Future”, an event organized by the essayist Nicolas Bouzou in Saint-Raphaël (Var). “I am told: ‘there are not enough civil servants in National Education’, but that is incredible demagoguery”declared the former President of the Republic (2007-2012), as we can hear in an extract posted by BFMTV on X.

“The status of the school teacher (…) is 24 hours a week (…) six months of the year (…) Between vacations and weekends…”continued the former president of the LR party. “So I know, you have to prepare for the lessons… Kindergarten, large section”he quipped, provoking laughter from the assembly. I know you have to grade papers and I know it's a tough job being a teacher, but we have to tell the truth now, we can't afford a million teachers.”

And Nicolas Sarkozy welcomes his policy of reducing the number of civil servants carried out during his mandate, with the non-replacement of one in two retirements: “You take all the Presidents of the Republic, General de Gaulle included, from 1958 until now, all of them, out of the eight, there is one who reduced the number of civil servants, it's me, 155,000 civil servants less.”

This release did not take long to provoke a reaction on the left. “This is what the right thinks of civil servants. We must listen to this contempt for school teachers! And dare to say that there are too many teachers when our children are often far too many per class”, commented on X the boss of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure. “Support for all teachers who do the best they can, every day, despite all the effort the government is going to to destroy national education”for his part posted on the social network the communist senator Ian Brossat.

Nicolas Sarkozy's statements also caused a stir among the teachers' unions. Still on “Coming from him, that’s not surprising, but through those who teach, it’s the students and parents of students that he despises!”