“Little ghosts of the Republic” : the expression, which we owe to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, meets little echo in the circles of teachers. However, it concerns them in the first place. These children who disappear from school radars – “Especially little girls in certain neighborhoods”, said Mr. Darmanin in the columns of Figaro, November 18 – justify most of the educational measures at the heart of the bill on republican principles, presented to the Council of Ministers, Wednesday 9 December: the limitation (in the absence of prohibition) of family education; reinforced supervision of private establishments not under contract; the possibility of closing these schools ” administratively “ in the event of observed deviations; or the attribution to each child of a personal identifier number “To find out who is enrolled in school, including at home”, Mr. Darmanin clarified, and at the same time ensure that none of them is deprived of their right to education.
It remains to be seen how many are. In the political field, we refer to places rather than figures. In particular in Tourcoing (North), a city of which Mr. Darmanin was the mayor, and where he says he has observed, by making the “School tour”, an imbalance, in some of them, between girls and boys. But also in Maubeuge (North), a city cited by the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, during his trip to Mureaux (Yvelines), on October 2, in response to a journalist who questioned him on the subject. Or in Toulouse, in Isère or in Seine-Saint-Denis, territories where the State has succeeded, at the end of sometimes complicated procedures, in closing structures which only had a school in name – five in three years.
Reception areas with sometimes “3-year-old girls, veiled from head to toe”, Jean-Michel Blanquer declared at the start of the 2020 school year, the day after the closure of a structure in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis). A year earlier, the Minister of Education had already denounced the “Islamist fundamentalism in certain territories, [qui] caused some little girls to go to school as late as possible, or with less attendance ”.
“Invisibles”
In his entourage, we now report a “Local phenomenon” which justifies a “General mobilization”: some 5,000 children, “Bad”, “never” or “Insufficiently” educated, would pay the costs of sectarian or religious excesses, including in the Catholic movement, we advance rue de Grenelle. A figure to be put into perspective, given the 12.4 million students enrolled in this new school year, the 85,000 accommodated in the non-contract sector and the 62,000 at home.
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