A holiday in the sun that now sounds like a storm warning for Jean-Michel Blanquer. He was on holiday in Ibiza when he unveiled at Parisian the new (and controversial) health protocol for schools, on the eve of the start of the new school year in January, according to Mediapart, information confirmed Monday evening by the ministry which indicates that the Minister of Education “worked remotely”.
Implementation of new measures
The latter had unveiled the main lines of the new health protocol in an interview with the Parisian on Sunday January 2, the day before the start of the school year, leaving schools little time to organize themselves, which had accentuated the discontent of the teams in the establishments.
He actually did a video interview, “it’s nothing extraordinary,” the ministry told AFP on Monday evening.
Work abroad
The minister was “in a private setting for 4 days of vacation”, “whether he was at a distance or not does not change anything”, added the ministry, recalling that ministers are authorized to go on vacation “up to two hours by plane from Paris”.
“The High Council for Public Health delivered its opinion on Sunday at 5:00 p.m., the protocol is decided in the general framework and it was then declined for schools”, it was specified, to explain the short period of time between the announcements and the start of the school year.
“If he had been there, it wouldn’t have come out sooner,” the ministry said.
The waltz of health protocols in schools in recent weeks has angered teachers, some of whom went on strike on January 13, a movement widely followed. Several unions have called for a new day of action for Thursday January 20, which might result in a new strike.