To each minister his controversy.
Except that this time, the Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal, had to play firefighters after a statement, having made the left jump, coming from the President of the Republic in person.
Thus, this Tuesday, she assured the National Assembly that Emmanuel Macron had "not spoken for a second about increasing registration fees", after a speech by the President of the Republic last week in which he called to a "systemic" reform of universities.
Less than three months before the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron wished Thursday during the closing by videoconference of the Congress of the Conference of University Presidents, a reform of universities, which he wants to be more "professionalizing", while judging an untenable “no cost” higher education system for students but with a massive failure rate.
“We will not be able to remain permanently in a system where higher education has no price for almost all students, he added, where a third of students are considered to be scholarship holders and where, however, we we have so much student precariousness, and a difficulty in financing a model much more financed by public money than anywhere in the world.
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“Stop worrying the students”, asks the minister
"What the President of the Republic said is very clear, we could not stay in a model where three conditions coexisted: almost free education, the fact that a third of the students are scholarship holders and yet we attend a very great precariousness of the students, and the fact that the university is almost entirely financed by public funds”, said Frédérique Vidal, questioned during the session of the questions to the government at the National Assembly.
“You invented the fact that the President of the Republic said that registration fees were going to increase.
Where did you read and hear this?
(…) It was never pronounced, on the other hand I can tell you what we have done, concretely: three years that we freeze the registration fees for all students, three years that we freeze the rents of the Crous, three years that we have been upgrading scholarships on social criteria, ”also answered the minister to a question from LFI deputy Alexis Corbière.
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She asked the MP "to stop trying to scare students, to worry them with things that the President of the Republic has never said", assuring "that there is no agenda hidden ".
Emmanuel Macron "did not speak for a second about increasing registration fees", repeated the minister to another question from ex-LREM MP Frédérique Dumas.
"It offers more support for students, more possibilities for student life, better consideration of their health, an ability to be followed by psychologists, more continuing education, more lifelong training , that we work on programs that lead the majority of young people to employment”.
