The teacher Didier Lemaire is one of the many speakers who spoke as part of the School Night organized by Les Républicains on Monday evening in Paris, in the presence of François-Xavier Bellamy, a great witness to the event. Symbol of a school system adrift, subject to the violence of communitarianism and radical Islam, the philosophy teacher was threatened with death in his establishment in 2020. After twenty years of practice at the Lycée de la Plaine from Neauphle to Trappes in Yvelines, he was placed under police protection for having denounced the rise of Islamism then he finally found himself unable to continue his profession in safety.
Monday evening, the LR evening was orchestrated by Geoffroy Didier, MEP and coordinator of the states general of the right, and Alexandre Borchio-Fontimp, senator from Alpes-Maritimes, member of the education and culture committee of the Senate. The organizers are pleased to have brought together “more than 400 people” in the middle of the European campaign.
Around the president LR Éric Ciotti and the head of the list François-Xavier Bellamy, professor of philosophy very concerned by this burning question of education in France, the public was able to listen to very diverse testimonies. Guests included Monique Canto-Sperber, philosopher, former director of the ENS, Erwan Le Noan, member of Fondapol, Olivier Babeau, economist, Philippe Delorme, secretary general of Catholic education, Mélody Mitterrand, founder of the school Walt, Jean-Baptiste Nouailhac, president of Excellence Ruralités, Guillaume Prévost, general director of the think tank “Vers le Haut” or even Lisa Kamen-Hirsig, teacher and author of La Grande Garderie.
Welcoming the “beautiful spirit of openness” of this School Night, Didier Lemaire, now a territorial civil servant in the cultural field for the Île-de-France region led by Valérie Pécresse, admits to being seduced by the head of the LR list . “I really appreciated François-Xavier Bellamy’s introductory speech. It was of very high quality and a high level of reflection.” If the ex-teacher from Trappes and ex-member of the Republican Solidarist Party (PRS now dissolved) defines a left-wing sensibility, he does not hide his decision to put a “Bellamy” ballot in the ballot box for the European elections on June 9. “He has been doing remarkable work on the subject for a long time,” he salutes. Why doesn’t he turn instead to Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the PS list, whose commitment to the Ukrainian question he appreciates? “The return of the socialist sirens is not at all my cup of tea,” replied Didier Lemaire to Le Figaro. For him, the divide is no longer the right/left opposition but the difference between Republican and non-Republican. Today he is in charge of the transpartisan association “Defense of Servants of the Republic”, committed to the protection of threatened people and republican principles. Moreover, he is delighted to be able to organize the first international conference on Islamism in Europe on Wednesday, at the Ile de France Regional Council in Saint-Ouen.
Monday evening, Didier Lemaire’s intervention was devoted to the crisis of authority at school which he perceives as a crisis of “connection” and the mission of teaching. “What is perhaps the most problematic, as Bellamy recalled, is the making of the most unequal school, classified today between Mexico and Bulgaria even though it represents the most expensive budget of the State, without counting all the additional expenses which easily double the stake.
Éric Ciotti estimates the expenditure of the French education system at 180 billion euros per year but for him, one of the most glaring signals of the French educational malaise is the inability of those in power to take long-term political action, as if France were condemned to improvise regularly and without direction. “For two years, the Ministry of Education has seen a record of four occupants! Four occupants who sent out so many contradictory messages one after the other. So what is Emmanuel Macron’s educational policy?” asks the leader of the right. Then to continue: “Is it that of Gabriel Attal, the Canada dry right, or that of Pap Ndiaye, armchair wokism? Is it that of Jean-Michel Blanquer, the school of the Republic, or that of Nicole Belloubet, the school of pedagogists? For seven years, Emmanuel Macron has subjected National Education to a waltz of orders and counter-orders which disorients our school and its staff,” finally accuses Éric Ciotti.
Didier Lemaire shares this observation and even goes so far as to judge Minister Blanquer’s “notable” passage as a “catastrophic” moment. “He should have resigned after the assassination of Samuel Paty but he did not do so. By presenting himself as the minister advocating secularism, in reality we have experienced years of renunciation and procrastination,” regrets the former Trappes professor. If the future of school seems very gloomy, Didier Lemaire wants to believe that France will one day be able to draw inspiration from good European examples, such as the Finnish system and its “extraordinary” results. He will undoubtedly put this subject at the heart of the discussions he wishes to continue with the European parliamentarian Bellamy. The two men planned to exchange views after the European campaign. The Republicans’ next nights should be devoted to housing and health, but probably after the June 9 election.