In Marseille, Emmanuel Macron announces that he wants to shorten the time of school holidays

Special envoy to Marseilles

Walkabouts like this, Emmanuel Macron would like more. No hostility, no reproach. It is true that the hands which reach out this Tuesday morning to the Head of State are juvenile. "'Can you call Mbappé? » ; "Is it cold in Paris?" ". At the elementary school Saint-André La Castellane, in the northern districts of Marseille, where he is continuing a three-day trip, the President of the Republic came to talk about education. Two years ago, when he presented his plan "Marseille in a big way", Emmanuel Macron had put the emphasis on youth by promising a large school renovation program. And a new educational approach. Alongside Benoît Payan, the various left-wing mayor of the city, the head of state notes the slow progress of the file.

In La Provence, he was annoyed on Monday to see local elected officials "procrastinate" when barely 19 projects are underway, far from the 188 which must ultimately be completed. The charge made the city councilor wince, who rejects this trial as an amateur. "There is no equivalent in the country since 1945", he insists, while affirming that his city is "certainly not a 'laboratory'". A recurring expression of the President of the Republic, who wants to rely on the various Marseille experiments to feed his national policy.

Here, Emmanuel Macron does not want to be content with doing masonry: “ the way of teaching“, it is “ as important, even more important than the walls”, he slips while discussing with the director of the school he is visiting and with the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye. In favor of greater autonomy for establishments, he reprimands left-wing "ideologies" which act as bulwarks against his educational policy by raising the specter of "the privatization of the school". "'That's what I was told. We demonstrate the opposite,” he told the educational staff. "'Everyone tells me 'equal-equal'... It doesn't work anymore!" Me, I answer “hypocrisy-hypocrisy” ”, ironically the president, who sets himself the objective of fighting against social inequalities at the root, by offering more room for maneuver to teachers.

As of Monday evening, during a debate organized with 300 inhabitants in the city of La Busserine, he also announced the gradual establishment of the college from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., "at least", in priority education areas. "'School inequality is created in these times when the child is sent home,' he said, referring at the same time to the establishment of kindergarten reception from the age of 2. In La Castellane, Zinedine Zidane's childhood district, where his face is displayed on a bar of buildings, Emmanuel Macron also questions the duration of school holidays. "We have children who sometimes have two and a half months of vacation, some almost three months", is surprised the head of state. "We must reopen a debate on school time during the year, which is one of the other great French hypocrisies", demands Emmanuel Macron.

Despite a few skirmishes, Benoît Payan also seems to want to move forward. "I agree, that's what needs to be done," he says when the discussion begins on the organization of extracurricular time with the establishments. The subject is sharper when it comes to the last little sentence of the president. The one he dropped on Monday, when he told a mother that he was ready to accompany "the son" to the Old Port to find him work: "We're going around, I'm sure there are ten offers. "'Me, if I go to the Old Port, I'm sure I'll find a little less,' retorts the city councilor, ignoring an article in the local daily which listed 13 offers on the spot.

“Maybe the president is better at finding jobs than me,” the mayor further suggests. This is not so sure. A child asked him to bring Kylian Mbappé to OM. “ We won't get there, that… I've already tried…”, replied Emmanuel Macron.