Human rights defender warns of "sidelining" caregivers' children

Jacques Toubon alerts the Ministry of National Education this Friday against the "sidelining" of children of caregivers, who may be victims of "difference in treatment" in certain academies when school resumes . The Defender of Rights requests an "intervention" from Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer in a press release published Thursday.

He indicated that he had been contacted by several carers whose children had been "kept apart in groups separate from other pupils" or "assigned to educational establishments welcoming exclusively children of nursing staff". "Certain academies and / or educational establishments justify this decision as being the application of government directives intended to limit the mixing of pupils", notes Jacques Toubon.

He claims to have "already drawn the attention of the Minister of Education" to "the highly damaging nature of the content and the excessively anxiety-provoking tone of certain instructions sent by schools to parents and children in the context of deconfinement". Decisions which "go beyond the health protocol provided for in the circular of May 4, 2020 relating to the reopening of schools and educational establishments", emphasizes the Defender of Rights.

Do not "stigmatize children"

“The children of nursing staff must not suffer from organizational difficulties. Like all children, they must be able to reconnect with their original school environment and rediscover a certain educational continuity. […] This difference in treatment reported in several academies, which stigmatizes a category of children, must stop, ”concludes Jacques Toubon.

Since Monday, primary schools are gradually reopening their doors in France, for a very cautious recovery. Some 1.5 million schoolchildren were expected to return to school during the week, before the first middle school students in green areas followed suit. But in many departments, including "green", school closings occur due to suspicious cases.

As La Montagne reports, a commune in Cantal, for example, closed one of its establishments because of the symptoms presented by a child of nursing staff.