For several days, educational booklets on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, including a 2 euro collector's coin minted by the Paris Mint, have been distributed to French primary schools.
These notebooks are intended for all students from CP to CM2 - or around 4 million schoolchildren.
These booklets of around thirty pages
“are in the process of being delivered, but school directors have been asked to wait for the official launch before distributing them
, ”
the Ministry of National Education confirms to Le
Figaro .
Each booklet includes a 2 euro coin from the Paris Mint.
Le Figaro
This operation, the total amount of which amounts to around 16 million euros, is making some of the teaching staff cringe as the government announced 10 billion euros in budget cuts this Thursday.
“It’s a crazy amount of money used for a purpose that is not educational.
This mismanagement is just a vast media operation
, says Estelle Guyon, professor in Angers and co-secretary in Maine-et-Loire of SNUipp-FSU, the first union of nursery and elementary schools.
And what sense does it make to ask teachers to distribute money to our students?
Especially since the teachers who work on the Olympics did not wait for this booklet.
Editorial by Emmanuel Macron and Olympic history
The notebook, which aims to introduce students to Olympic
“history”
and
“values”,
opens with a two-page editorial signed by Emmanuel Macron.
“At a time when the world and Europe are reconnecting with tragedies and wars, countries around the world will find themselves in dialogue and peace
,” writes the President of the Republic, for whom the Games will be a
“one essential moment in the life of our nation
.
In conclusion, the tenant of the Élysée reaffirms its
“ambition”
to make the students currently in primary school
“a sporting generation”
.
Followed by two messages signed by Gabriel Attal, then still Minister of National Education, and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Minister of Sports.
What we are asking for are no longer positions, salary increases, rather than eliminating positions in our academies
Estelle Guyon, departmental co-secretary SNUipp-FSU 43
The following pages are devoted to Olympic history: here, the main dates of the modern Games;
there, a list of
"Olympic and Paralympic sports"
or even
"founding figures"
, such as Pierre de Coubertin - the founder of the modern Games - and Alice Milliat, a French sportswoman who worked to ensure that women could compete in the most of possible disciplines.
At the end of the booklet, games (
“Help Phryge to join her friends”
,
“Connect each athlete to their discipline”
) have also been printed.
“We are very far from what the school expects”
With this kit and the coin,
“students and teachers will have a legacy of this essential and historic moment”
, we maintain on rue de Grenelle.
This operation is reminiscent of that launched in 1989 by François Mitterrand for the bicentenary of the French Revolution.
That year, the socialist president distributed a booklet and a commemorative 1 franc coin to each CM2 student.
“We are very far from what the school expects. What we are asking for are additional positions, salary increases, rather than eliminating positions in our academies
,” continues the trade unionist.
According to a document dated January 18 and consulted by
Le Figaro
, 92 positions will, for example, be eliminated in the Nantes academy, including 20 in Maine-et-Loire and 25 in Loire-Atlantique.