“We will maintain the bias to keep schools open, and to preserve the education of our children as much as possible.
It is a choice that sets us apart from many of our neighbors and that we intend to preserve as much as possible (...) ”To change nothing, or almost nothing, at school: this is what the Prime Minister, Jean said. Castex, Thursday evening, against the restrictions put in place for 16 departments hit by the increase in the epidemic and subjected since this weekend to confinement for at least one month.
The only alterations to the school from this Monday, March 22: numbers in half-gauges for all high schools in the territories in red, and physical education (EPS) now authorized indoors.
No hard measure, while the epidemic figures are on the rise: in France, 2018 classes are closed, according to National Education figures given on Friday, against 833 the previous week.
Granted, it's only 0.4% of the country's classes, but the increase is spectacular.
In addition, 15,484 students tested positive for Covid-19, against just over 900 eight days before, and 1,809 staff are positive, 700 more than on March 12.
Ministry of National Education announced 112 classes closed Thursday, March 18 at 3 p.m.
Same time, same day, the rectorate of Paris announces the closure of 126 classes to trade unions.
So what are the real numbers? #CovidWatch pic.twitter.com/1LYZ4tMoqp
- SNES-PARIS (@SNESPARIS) March 21, 2021
"We have more and more feedback from the field about personnel, in particular supervisors, arrested for cases of Covid-19", confirms Sophie Vénétitay, spokesperson for Snes-FSU, majority secondary union.
In the opinion of many specialists, the school and the canteen, where one falls the mask, are "the assumed Achilles heel of the device", summarizes the epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet in the columns of the JDD, this Sunday.
Under these conditions, what does the “half-gauge” change in high schools?
In short: one in two students will be able to go to the establishment every day.
In Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France, 1021 high schools are concerned.
"This is a good measure, especially as with the approach of the bac, some tended to make forced face-to-face", recognizes Sophie Vénétitay, who recalls that two-thirds of establishments were already in hybrid.
The canteen, a potential cluster?
"I am reassured to know that my daughter is in a half-group, there is less mixing, less risk that she is in contact with a carrier of the virus", adds Catherine, a parent of a student from Seine-Saint -Denis.
For Philippe Vincent, of the union of management staff (SNPDEN-Unsa), it is "the last cartridge before the dry closure of establishments".
Is it sufficient?
What about canteens, which Jean-Michel Blanquer himself qualifies as a “weak link”?
The authorities consider them too socially necessary.
Thus, the main lever, these are the saliva tests, deployed for three weeks where the virus circulates the most, to bypass the reluctance of the youngest in the face of the nasopharyngeal swab.
The canteen is in essence a place of conviviality ... and therefore of potential contamination.
LP / Julien Barbare
The week of March 15, with an 80% volunteer rate among students to be screened (against 20% for nose tests), about 250,000 saliva tests, out of the 300,000 deployed, were able to be carried out.
Result: the incidence rate noted is between 0.35% and 0.5% (or 350 to 500 cases per 100,000 people), announced Jean-Michel Blanquer on LCI this Sunday evening, welcoming that it is "a slightly less than in the general population ”.
The other countries "protect their teachers"
For teachers, these tests are not enough.
Many claim to be vaccinated as a priority, as their unions are written in a press release, the day after the Prime Minister's intervention.
“I'm going to work the ball in the stomach.
I'm locked in a classroom with 25 little maskless virus spreaders!
The only thing that would reassure me would be to be vaccinated, ”summarizes Coline, a kindergarten teacher in Pas-de-Calais.
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The subject does not seem to be on the agenda - the government having opted for the protection of the most vulnerable in the immediate future.
Even if Jean-Michel Blanquer recently assured in Le Parisien that he "would do everything" to ensure that teachers receive a priority dose in April, "if vaccines arrived in large numbers".
Still, other countries have made this choice, remarks Sophie Vénétitay, "to protect teachers and keep schools open".
This is the case in Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United States, where President Biden has promised them a first dose before the end of March.