French press review

On the front page: a government and many questions...

Audio 04:12

Damien Abad, the new Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and Disabled People.

© Jean-Luc Hauser

By: Frédéric Couteau Follow

3 mins

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“ 

Funny back to school this Monday morning,

notes

Le Parisien.

While the first Council of Ministers of the government of Elisabeth Borne meets at 10 a.m., here is the executive already caught up in a controversy after Mediapart revealed this weekend accusations of rape dating from 2010 and 2011 targeting Damien Abad, the new Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and Disabled People.

Yesterday, Sunday, the entourages of the ministers did not jostle to comment on the affair, any more than the Elysée.

 »

For her part, Elizabeth Borne, the Prime Minister, assured that she was “not aware”.

“ 

An answer that questions,

believes

Mediapart.

Before each appointment, ministers are screened.

How can we imagine that the executive could have ignored the existence of the rape complaint filed in 2017 (then classified), which had even at the time leaked in the magazine Closer and widely circulated in the political world?

Then how to also explain that the report sent on May 16 by the Observatory of gender-based and sexual violence to several leaders of LREM was not sent to Matignon or the Élysée? 

»

For

La Charente Libre

, Abad can only resign: "

 already targeted as a renegade by his former LR companions, the new minister risks quickly becoming the core target of feminist movements and despisers of Emmanuel Macron's procrastination and contradictions in its fight against violence against women.

A pressure which should logically lead him to resign, for lack of being able to calmly exercise his mission as Minister of Solidarity and whatever the subsequent decisions of a justice just seized.

 »

Pap Ndiaye at Education: questions around an appointment

Another new minister who is much talked about but not for the same reasons: Pap Ndiaye… ink, especially in the right-wing press.

The ambiguities of an appointment 

", headlines

L'Opinion.

“ 

With this surprise, Emmanuel Macron may have two ideas in mind,

says the liberal daily:

cut the rug from under Mélenchon and the parties he colonized for the legislative elections.

(…) The historian can indeed seduce teachers or young people from the suburbs, electoral audiences of this left.

(…) The second idea, more distant and hypothetical

, notes

L'Opinion again: building confidence in the world of education in order to reform it better. 

»

Le Figaro

wonders: “ 

What did Macron want to do (with this appointment): an ideological turning point or a political coup?

On the part of Ndiaye: what equivalence does he establish between the free reflection of the academic and the responsible action of the minister?

On the part of Macron: does he favor the defense of republican universalism or reconciliation with a world of teachers strongly steeped in Melenchonism?

And this theoretical debate, anything but incidental, should not make us forget,

Le Figaro points out again

, that the first task of the new minister will first be to carry out a global overhaul of the school on which, there too, a clarification will be imposed. 

»

Regain the lost confidence of teachers?

Liberation

also wonders: “ 

what does Emmanuel Macron expect from Pap Ndiaye in Education?

Even among admirers of the historian, the question of the leeway he will have raises questions, like his ability to move such a heavy administration.

Emmanuel Macron's program, which for teachers is like an ersatz of Nicolas Sarkozy's 'work more to earn more', has provoked revolt in the educational world. 

»

And

Liberation

to quote this confidence from someone close to Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée: "

 we cannot say that our educational policy has been a success when we see that it takes another five generations for someone at the bottom of the social ladder comes in the middle.

So we have to speed up and we won't get there without bringing the teachers.

With Blanquer, there was a mistrust that had settled to the point that dialogue was no longer possible.

We bet with Pap Ndiaye that there is a presupposition of trust and that the teachers will give him a chance. 

»

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