Amélie Oudéa-Castera at the end of a council of ministers, on the steps of the Elysée, December 12, 2023. JULIEN MUGUET FOR “LE MONDE”
This is one of the surprises of this new tightened government: a superministry of national education, youth, sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games was entrusted, Thursday, January 11, to Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, 45 years old. , minister of sports since 2022. She succeeds Gabriel Attal, appointed prime minister on January 9, after less than six months in national education.
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This follower of Emmanuel Macron, whom she met on the benches of the National School of Administration (ENA) in the early 2000s (Leopold Sedar-Senghor promotion), had written the outgoing president’s “sport” proposals in 2022: introduction of thirty minutes of daily sport in primary school and two additional hours of physical and sports education per week in middle school from the start of the school year.
Known to know her files like the back of her hand, the former general director of the French Tennis Federation (March 2021-May 2022) continued, within the ministry, the work of cleaning up sports bodies started by her predecessor, Roxana Maracineanu. “AOC” thus played a key role in the dismissal of Claude Atcher from the head of the organizing committee of the Rugby World Cup, then pushed Noël Le Graët to resign from the presidency of the French Football Federation and Bernard Laporte of that of rugby.
“A part-time minister”
Thursday evening, on the social networkthe person concerned declared that she “will continue[t] fully, with the same passion, [s]we take action to ensure the success of the Games”. The association of national education and sports within a single ministry is not new – this was still the case between 2020 and 2022. But the former swimmer Roxana Maracineanu was then deputy minister, under supervision from rue de Grenelle. Many in the sports community dreamed of seeing the creation of a full-fledged ministry associating sports with national education.
In a forum at Mondeco-signed with the former Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye in April 2023, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra thus estimated that the school “will be the strongest foundation on which we will build the legacy of the Games”. The fact remains that six months before the opening ceremony, while the preparation of the event risks monopolizing the agenda, many are questioning the capacity of the minister to manage two files simultaneously which are each presented as government priorities.
The announcement thus aroused anger in the ranks of the teaching unions. “It is impossible for the minister to manage both the Olympics and the school” annoys Sophie Vénétitay, from SNES-FSU. “ After having had a minister who stayed for five months, we will have a part-time minister while the school is going through a deep crisis. We have the impression of being treated with inconsistency, contempt and even casualness. » Gabriel Attal justified this decision, Thursday evening, by evoking the “synergy” between the two subjects, in a context where the executive wishes to strengthen the practice of sport at school.
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