Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Thomas SAMSON / AFP 19:10 p.m., January 16, 2024

After justifying her children's schooling in the private sector because of "the bundles of hours that were not seriously replaced" at the Littré public school in Paris, the Minister of National Education Amélie Oudéa-Castéra is the target of a defamation complaint filed by a public teachers' union.

The National Union of Public Employees of National Education (SNAPEN) filed a complaint on Tuesday in Paris against the Minister of National Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, targeting the remarks she made to justify the schooling of her children in private schools. The defamation complaint, seen by AFP, was filed with the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the only court empowered to prosecute and try members of the government for offences committed in the exercise of their duties.

>> READ ALSO - Oudéa-Castéra controversy: the minister offers her "apologies" to the teachers of the Littré public school

She is targeting the remarks made on Friday by Amélie Oudéa-Castéra to explain the schooling of her three sons in a prestigious private school in Paris. In particular, her statements about her "frustration" at "bundles of hours that were not seriously replaced" at the Littré public school - from where she had taken her eldest son to put him in private school.

The reputation of public education workers "discredited"

This complaint "aims to sanction these remarks that affect the reputation of agents by discrediting public education and, more generally, to impose the respect due by the highest administrations on them," commented Gérard Lenfant, president of SNAPEN. This union presents itself as "apolitical", open to "all the staff of the Ministry of National Education present on the ground in the academies of Toulouse and Montpellier".

>> READ ALSO - Pascal Praud and you - Luc Ferry "supports" Amélie Oudéa-Castéra: "Putting your children in private is legal and moral"

"Nothing can justify the making of defamatory statements for the sole purpose of trying to avoid a controversy, which is moreover legitimate and in the public interest. Public education cannot be pilloried to allow a Minister of Education to justify the schooling of his child in the private sector," said Vincent Brengarth, the union's lawyer in the case. Complaints addressed to the CJR are filtered by a petitions committee, which can close them or refer them to an investigating committee. At the end of the investigation, the commission dismisses the case or commits the case for trial.