He considers the grievances of the teaching staff to be exaggerated. During a conference this Friday in the Var, former President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly criticized the work pace of teachers and in particular that of school teachers, considering it too light.
“I am told that there are not enough civil servants in National Education. But it’s incredible demagoguery,” declared the former right-wing president on the stage of “Rencontres de l’avenir”, in Saint-Raphaël, broadcast on BFM2.
“The status of the school teacher, I don’t criticize anyone… I don’t want to bore anyone, I say facts. It’s 24 hours a week. (…) And what we don’t say is six months of the year, because between vacations and weekends… I know very well that we have to prepare lessons, I know that it the copies must be corrected,” added the president, however excluding the case of “kindergarten” and “major section” teachers.
“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. There are hundreds of thousands of competent, dedicated and wonderful teachers. And there are some who choose this job for the wrong reasons,” continued Nicolas Sarkozy, saying he was responsible for the elimination of 155,000 civil servants during his mandate.
This outburst sparked a strong reaction from teachers. Nicolas Sarkozy “spits in the face of thousands of nursery school teachers and more generally school teachers”, judges Guislaine David, general secretary and spokesperson for Snuipp-FSU. “Coming from him that’s not surprising, but through those who teach, it’s the students and parents of students that he despises,” she continues on X.
“Six months of vacation in the year…. sure he was never good at math #Sarkozy should go back to school but not enough teachers…” commented the Snes-FSU account of the Créteil academy.
On the left, the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure also castigated the “contempt” of the former head of state “for school teachers”. The PS MP also deplores that Nicolas Sarkozy dares “to say that there are too many teachers when our children are often far too many per class”.
“Go and spend even just one week in a nursery school, Mr. Sarkozy! », responded, for his part, the MoDem deputy Laurent Croizier, criticizing remarks of “abysmal ignorance”, which “contribute to the crisis of attractiveness of the teaching profession”.
