Emmanuel Macron Seeks Replacement for Disappointing Minister of Education

“He says that because he knows he has nothing left to lose, he burns his vessels”… This is how a minister analyzed, on Wednesday, the remarks made a few days earlier by Pap Ndiaye. Sunday, on radio J, the Minister of National Education gave his support to the drafting of the Sunday newspaper, on strike to oppose the appointment as its head of the former boss of Current Values, Geoffroy Lejeune. Journalists “do not want to enter the galaxy of publications or media controlled by a character who is obviously very close to the most radical far right”, had launched the Minister of National Education, targeting without naming him Vincent Bolloré , owner of the Vivendi group. Emmanuel Macron supported his minister yesterday by defending “freedom of expression which also applies to members of the government”, but this position was greeted with caution by macronist circles, further weakening a little more than a departing minister.

Not political enough

For months, the former director of the museum of the history of immigration has been the target of attacks from his government colleagues. Already in November, Renaissance deputies formed a group to propose a law making the wearing of school uniform compulsory, against the advice of the minister. Many already criticize him for never receiving the deputies and, ultimately, for not doing politics. He considers that it is not necessary to do so… The Midi Dispatch, Pap Ndiaye explained that there was no need to go through the Assembly to reform. But little by little, the minister who was welcomed as one of the main attractions of the Borne government has become the weak link.

“We need a major education reform, but we don’t see it coming. All we see is that with Pap Ndiaye, it’s not a mess, but we may have to have the courage to ask the question of the remuneration of teachers”, annoyed an elected official before Christmas and added: “He is brilliant but does he know the mysteries of the institution well enough to make things happen? That’s the question”. In the spring, when a reshuffle was already announced, the criticisms became more specific and came, this time, from deputies very close to the Élysée: “We need more political profiles. An incarnation of Health and Education is necessary. A minister who does not get out of the train because there is a casserole, it is a problem”, squeaked an elected official. Pap Ndiaye had, a few days earlier, been exfiltrated from a TGV when he arrived in Paris after a trip to Lyon.

Mishandling the Lindsay Drama

But it was his management of the suicide of Lyndsay, a 13-year-old girl who killed herself on May 12 after being harassed for a long time that sealed the minister’s fate. He only received the family three weeks after the fact and obviously not with the right words. “I did not find the minister sincere”, launched the mother of the teenager at the end of the appointment. His maintenance in government therefore proved to be complicated.

It is therefore because there is an urgent need to find a replacement for him that the reshuffle cannot wait. “The Gordian knot for the President is National Education”, confided, Tuesday, a minister in the ear of The Dispatch. Indeed, Emmanuel Macron does not want Pap Ndiaye to organize the future school year. “He who will succeed him will not take many vacations,” smiled, too, one of the members of the government team. To replace him, a few names circulate without insistence, such as that of Gabriel Attal or Olivier Véran …