Ndiaye embodies "what we want to do" for the school, underlines Macron

Europe 1 with AFP 5:14 p.m., June 02, 2022

The new Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, embodies by his career "what we want to do" for the school, in particular in terms of equal opportunities, said Thursday Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of a trip to Marseille .

"When I chose to appoint Pap Ndiaye, I chose to appoint a man who first of all by his life, his career, says what I believe in the school of the Republic", declared the head of the state to the press.

"I think he also embodies what we have done over the past five years, what we want to do, that is to say how much the school of the Republic allows us to build equal opportunities", a- he added in support of his minister, the target of a barrage of fire from the far right since his surprise appointment.

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"Parents who believed in the school of the Republic"

For the President of the Republic, Pap Ndiaye, born in France to a Senegalese father and a French mother, had "parents who believed in the school of the Republic".

The minister, a recognized academic, son of a college professor from Hauts-de-Seine, was educated in a renowned establishment in the Paris region.

A former student of the École Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud, he defined himself as "a pure product of Republican meritocracy".

The president praised a "destiny of excellence".

He "showed through his studies, his academic career, his concern for equal opportunities" and "the fact that the Republic should always look at itself, be able to build its unity while respecting diversity", said concluded Emmanuel Macron, praising a "universalist discourse" in which he "believes" alongside his minister.

This was Pap Ndiaye's first major media outing.

Discreet, attentive, he found "extraordinary" the mathematics laboratory presented in a kindergarten supposed to prefigure the schools of the future.

"We potentially have something," he slipped to the mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan.

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Specialist in the social history of the United States and minorities

The appointment of this specialist in the social history of the United States and minorities had aroused the wrath of the far right, which describes him as "a racialist and anti-cop activist".

While his predecessor Jean-Michel Blanquer regularly worried about “woke” phenomena or “Islamo-leftism”, Pap Ndiaye himself doubted on several occasions the validity of these concepts.

Reputed to be a supporter of consensus, the personality of the new minister could however be an asset in promoting reconciliation with the teaching world, after months of confrontation with Jean-Michel Blanquer.

In Marseille, where the subject of schools is a hot topic, Mayor Benoît Payan "expects a lot from this minister on the educational side" and equality issues.