Traveling to the Saint-André school, in the La Castellane district of Marseille, on Tuesday June 27, Emmanuel Macron said he was in favor, during an exchange with journalists, of a reduction in school vacation time over the period. summer.
“We must reopen a debate which is that of school time during the year, which is one of the other great French hypocrisies”, declared in particular the President of the Republic, who is making a three-day visit to the second city of France to relaunch the Marseille support plan on a large scale, developed by the government. “We have children who have two and a half months of vacation, some almost three months of vacation. But we have to concert that, we have to work on it, not for next year, it’s a bit tight but we have to rethink this time in the year, “he continued.
Speaking directly to the journalist who questioned him on this subject, two weeks after former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe mentioned the same idea during a public meeting in Bordeaux, the president explained the reasons for his project. of consultation: “Your children, they have parents who have learning, knowledge. I think your children will be careful that they make vacation diaries. (…) The children of the neighborhoods, they are left with little sports infrastructure, with families who are already in difficulty. When you have a three-month vacation, inequality returns. »
The declarations of the Head of State, made alongside his Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, do not include a method of consultation or a precise timetable. Emmanuel Macron mentioned, to conclude his remarks, a negative consequence, according to him, of the current school rhythms: “We stuff the weeks of our children. It is because the children leave too early and have longer holidays over the past twenty years that you have these same children, when you compare them with our neighbors, who arrive exhausted every evening. How do Germans manage to have sports in the afternoon? Because they have school time that is distributed differently throughout the year. »
The President of the Republic must continue his visit to Marseille with a meeting with health professionals, before a visit to the regional hotel – whose executive is led by one of his allies from the right, Renaud Muselier – at the end of the afternoon. He is then due to deliver a speech from the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations at 8 p.m.
