His appointment is the main surprise of the new government of Elisabeth Borne, unveiled on Friday May 20.

The arrival of Pap Ndiaye at the head of the Ministry of National Education is all the more unexpected as the profile of this academic appears to break with that of his predecessor, Jean-Michel Blanquer.

Born to a Senegalese father and a French mother, this 56-year-old researcher is a specialist in the social history of the United States and minorities.

Since last year he has held the position of director of the Museum of the History of Immigration.

A former student of the École Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud, a history graduate and holder of a doctorate from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Pap Ndiaye is the older brother of the writer Marie NDiaye , Prix Goncourt 2009. He studied in the United States from 1991 to 1996 and made himself known to the general public by publishing in 2008 "The Black Condition. Essay on a French Minority", his reference work.

"A new way of apprehending the past"

"In the field of history, he is someone who has been innovative, he has been able to show a new way of understanding the past. His work on the black presence in France is founding", says of him the historian Pascal Blanchard, specialist in colonization.

In 2019, always keen to popularize his subjects of study, Pap Ndiaye became scientific adviser to the exhibition "The black model" at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, devoted to the representation of blacks in the visual arts.

More recently, in 2020, he co-authored a report on diversity at the Paris Opera.

Professor for many years at Sciences Po, he is appreciated by his peers and presented as a follower of consensus.

"He is diplomatic in his way of being to others. It's good because it's a ministry that needs diplomacy," said Pascal Blanchard.

"If he has the means to have the politics that he can embody, as an intellectual personality, I think that we will go in a new direction", abounds the sociologist Michel Wieviorka, who adds that "on everything that affects minorities , it embodies orientations that are certainly not those that Jean-Michel Blanquer has implemented".

"A media stunt"

The appointment to the National Education of Pap Ndiaye, who in 2012 had signed a platform calling for a vote for François Hollande, also arouses criticism.

"I am amazed at this news. For me, Pap Ndiaye was not at all in there. What is certain is that it was necessary to 'unblock' National Education", reacted to the AFP the deputy La France insoumise Alexis Corbière.

But "this media stunt, the only one from this dull government, will not defuse the deep anger in the National Education", he believes.

The most hostile reactions to this nomination were expressed in the camp of the nationalist right.

"Emmanuel Macron had said that the history of France had to be deconstructed. Pap Ndiaye will take care of it", wrote on Twitter the leader of the Reconquest! party, Éric Zemmour.

Emmanuel Macron had said that the History of France had to be deconstructed.

Pap Ndiaye will take care of it. # reshuffle # new government

— Eric Zemmour (@ZemmourEric) May 20, 2022

Denouncing the choice of an "assumed indigenist" to assume the function of Minister of National Education, the president of the National Rally Marine Le Pen called for the election, next month, of "a maximum of deputies of the National Rally to protect our youth from the worst ideologies".

With AFP

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