Minister of National Education from 2014 to 2017, the socialist Najat Vallaud-Belkacem had to manage the explosion caused in 2015 by the terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher, in January, then the attacks of November 13, against the Bataclan, in particular.
The day after the assassination of a teacher from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) who had shown caricatures of Muhammad in civic education, she denounces a "barbaric act" and calls for unity.
Anxious to defend its record in defending secularism at school, it also warns against the risk of “political recovery”.
Did Islamism win against school on Friday?
NAJAT VALLAUD-BELKACEM.
It is the type of collective reaction that we will have that will make it win or fail.
The danger is real that this barbaric act weakens our school.
We must all be united behind it.
Have we looked too much elsewhere, for too many years, when teaching was called into question in schools?
That there have been failures in the past, not because of the teachers, but because of the negligence of the public authorities in giving them the means to make students succeed and to ensure the defense of values within the school. of the Republic and social diversity, it is obvious.
But to act as if nothing new had happened in this area in recent years would be absurd.
I know something about it, to have seized in a quasi-obsessive way the distrust of part of our youth vis-à-vis secularism, the authority of scientific knowledge or the rule of law. collective on individual conviction ... Have, as we have done, installed the mandatory reporting of incidents, followed by sanctions with teams and dedicated inspection tools, a charter of secularism that we made sign the parents, a day devoted to secularism in all establishments on December 9, or the reinforced control of schools outside the contract… one cannot frankly call that “looking elsewhere”.
Is it still possible to prevent teachers from censoring themselves and ceasing to address certain subjects in class?
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Teachers know the importance of their mission.
What they need is to feel supported.
By institution, but also by society, because the fight for critical thinking and against obscurantism is one of the greatest fights of our time and it is up to each of us to ask ourselves how to contribute.
The National Education Citizen's Reserve that I created in 2015 was used for this: a pool of committed citizens, journalists, magistrates, volunteer professionals who came to speak to students, in their own words, about freedom of expression, religion, Charlie, respect.
I would have liked it to continue, to be developed, to mark a new era of support for schools.
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Before being assassinated, the teacher had been designated for retribution by a parent, on social networks.
How to protect teachers?
We must be intractable with the provocations of those who attack the school in the name of obscurantism, those who pass off respect for secularism as Islamophobia.
The school must be a place of common rules with no accommodation possible.
And, at the same time, we must multiply initiatives so that parents are actors in the school, because distance is a factor of division, incomprehension and sometimes hatred.
The worst answer would be to worsen the logic of exclusion.
After the 2015 attacks, you called for more education in republican values.
What was the result of your action when you were minister?
The most useful at the time, beyond the firmness in the face of incidents and the citizen reserve that I mentioned, was what we launched on the side of the teachers, with their training and support thanks to secular referents in academies.
And on the students' side with new lessons such as moral and civic education, media and information education, digital education.
All this aimed to give the school the means to be a factory of citizens.
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What do you think remains to be done?
Further strengthen support for teachers.
Recreate a national consensus on secularism, so that its political recovery ceases and that it is first and foremost the means of appeasing schools and society.
And always work more so that the school embodies the republican and social promise of equality.
We must be as demanding in ensuring that the rules are respected as in carrying out this ambition.
What would you like to say to the relatives, colleagues and students of the murdered teacher?
My immense affection for them, my gratitude for all that Samuel Paty has been and will be.
The collective obligation that we have to be up to the task.
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