End of the series? National Education Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, at the heart of a controversy over her children's schooling, said on Tuesday (January 16th) that she had apologized to the teachers of the Parisian public school Littré, from which she had withdrawn her eldest son to enroll him in private school.

The minister, whose exit from the school was accompanied by boos – as had been the case on her arrival – stressed that she "owed" these "apologies" for having "hurt" the teachers and that she "regretted having mentioned them by name" in front of the press when she had evoked, last Friday, the "packages of hours" "not seriously replaced" in the public sector to justify the schooling of her children in private schools. This version was contradicted two days later by Libération: the newspaper revealed that the minister's eldest son had spent only six months in kindergarten in the public school and that his teacher had never been absent.

Amélie Oudéa-Castéra after graduating from the Littré school:

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"I want them to be spared a little bit from all this and work again in serenity," said Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. "It was also a useful, constructive conversation, in which we talked together about the future of the school. They shared with me their expectations, their vision of how to improve and deal with the problems of the school. It is this roadmap that I will continue to carry, by remaining attentive," added the minister, who proclaimed her desire to "continue the social dialogue" with the unions.

Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said she wanted to return to the field at the end of the week and "in the coming weeks, to deal with the problems and to make the school successful".

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Appointed on Thursday to head a super ministry of national education, youth, sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the minister has been mired in controversy since her remarks made on Friday during a trip with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, whose government is facing its first storm.

Both his choice to enroll his three sons in the Stanislas school, a prestigious private school in the capital's wealthy districts, and his stated motivations, namely "packages of hours not seriously replaced" in the public, provoked an outcry.

With AFP

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