• The mask will be mandatory again from Monday in schools in 39 departments, due to the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic.

  • A decision badly received by the teachers' unions, who fear that these back and forths in the health protocol are not well understood by families and that the health rules are not necessarily well applied.

"Do you have masks in your satchel?" ". This is the question that parents will have to ask their children after these All Saints' school holidays. The mask will indeed be compulsory again from Monday in primary schools in 39 departments, due to the resurgence of the coronavirus epidemic, government spokesman Gabriel Attal announced on Wednesday. A decision that comes because in these departments, the incidence rate has risen above 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Even before the All Saints' Day holidays, the mask had already become compulsory for primary school pupils in Lozère.

This will therefore bring to sixty, out of 101, the number of departments where students must wear it.

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, the Ministry of Education indicated that it would communicate "in the coming hours" the list of the territories concerned, a Defense Council taking place this Thursday.

The "yoyo" protocol criticized

This decision is all the more badly received by the teachers' unions since they had seen it coming: “It is not surprising. When in October, the mask had been abandoned in several departments, we said that we had to be careful because the health situation could change rapidly, ”said Stéphane Crochet, secretary general of the SE-Unsa teachers' union. “Scientists' forecasts let us think that the incidence rate would go up. All the more so with the falling temperatures, it becomes difficult to ventilate the classes and that children are the only unvaccinated population, ”abounds Ghislaine David, spokesperson for SNUipp-FSU.

The mode of switching from the level 1 protocol (not wearing a mask) to that of level 2 (compulsory mask for students) is also criticized: if the threshold of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants is exceeded five consecutive days, the protocol changes from level 1 to 2, as is the case in the 39 departments concerned.

“It seems too short to us.

This threshold would have to be exceeded for two to three weeks in order to avoid this permanent yoyo phenomenon, ”says Ghislaine David.

Destabilizing for children

Among the parents of students, the news is also moaning: “Families are exhausted from having to constantly adapt to sudden government announcements,” says Carla Dugault, co-president of the FCPE. And the return of stricter health rules may not be obvious to everyone: "We expect some parents to discuss the merits of returning the mask to school because they do not perceive the recovery. epidemic. As we saw recently in Lozère. This can lead to tensions that school directors will have to try to appease, ”anticipates Stéphane Crochet.

This return of the mask may also disturb the students, according to Ghislaine David: “By removing the mask, they had forgotten the Covid-19.

Handing it over is unsettling for them.

Not to mention the disciplinary problems that this will cause, because the teachers will have to call to order those who have lost the habit of putting it on or who wear it under the chin ”.

Concerns for the next few months

This return of the wearing of the mask in 39 departments is also interpreted as a worrying signal by the educational community: "The more we go into winter, the more the number of departments exceeding the incidence rate of 50 per 100,000 inhabitants is likely to to augment. Does that mean that we are at the start of the 5th wave? Above all, we don't want to relive what we suffered last year, ”fears Stéphane Crochet. Before the All Saints holidays, the number of classes closed due to Covid-19 had risen slightly for the first time since mid-September, to stand at 1,246, or 0.24% of classes in the country, according to the reports. figures from the Ministry of National Education.

To avoid a black scenario, the unions call on the ministry to take new measures: “Since the start of the school year, around 200,000 tests have been carried out in schools, instead of the 600,000 planned.

We miss positive cases among students.

The number of tests must be increased and the establishments must be equipped with air purifiers, ”insists Ghislaine David.

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