Blanquer “enchanted”: “There was no violence apart from the sprinkling of whipped cream on his cap” – Liberation

Legislative elections 2022dossierChristophe and Olivier, teachers at the college in Montargis, claim not to have anticipated the sprinkling of cream on the former Minister of National Education. With “Libé”, they claim to want to denounce his “parachuting” in the Loiret and the policy carried out when he officiated rue de Grenelle. Between strawberries, tomatoes and cherries, they saw red when they saw their former minister. While they were filling their baskets on the Montargis market, on the morning of Saturday June 4, Christophe and Olivier, professors of plastic arts and technology at the college, 51 and 57, sprayed Jean-Michel Spread with whipped cream. The former Minister of Education was campaigning for the presidential majority in the 4th constituency of Loiret. “total incapacity for work”, according to the Montargis prosecution. The two defendants will appear on July 4 before the prosecutor for an appearance hearing on prior admission of guilt, a procedure which makes it possible to quickly judge the perpetrators of an offense who have admitted the facts. Olivier and Christophe explained their gesture to Liberation. Why did you sprinkle Jean-Michel Blanquer with whipped cream? When buying our strawberries on Saturday morning, we thought back to the words of Sibeth Ndiaye [au sujet de la polémique des instituteurs qui pourraient aller aider les agriculteurs] while she was government spokesperson, during the first confinement: “We do not intend to ask a teacher who today is not working, given the closure of schools, to cross all of France to go and collect Gariguette strawberries.” By forgetting distance school, by forgetting that we were staying to watch the children of caregivers, police officers, supermarket employees… We did not know that Jean-Michel Blanquer would be there, we had not premeditated our gesture. But when we saw that his teams were present, we thought it was time to perpetuate the old tradition of piling to show our disagreement with the policy pursued when he was minister and his parachuting in the legislative elections in the Loiret. In order not to hurt him, we favored the whipped cream, which made it possible not to have physical contact. Contrary to what was reported, he was not insulted, there was no violence apart from the spraying of cream on his cap. How did your arrest go? We were immediately arrested, a from us by LREM activists, the other by a plainclothes policeman who belted him. We expected it. On the other hand, we were more surprised afterwards. The judicial response was immediate and strong. Two police cars arrived and took us to the police station where we remained in police custody for seven or eight hours, which seems a bit excessive to us. Jean-Michel Blanquer filed a complaint. We were interrogated twice. After acknowledging the facts, we were told that we were being prosecuted for having “willfully committed violence with this circumstance [aggravante] that the facts were committed in a meeting”. What do you blame Jean-Michel Blanquer for? We have been teaching in REP for more than 20 years. In recent years, we have had to get used to working in a context of immense violence: a dramatic Covid period, students in difficult conditions left in overcrowded classes, a national education system which recruits temporary workers, and which struggles to attract vocations, a lack of budget, the freezing of the staff index point and the fall in purchasing power… So many elements that have led to a considerable deterioration in our work degradations. We have nothing against “the ‘man’ Blanquer. It is not a story of an individual, but of a policy. A policy that breaks one more public administration, after having already broken hospitals and justice. And to see this politician, former Minister of National Education, parachuted into a territory he does not know for these elections when we know very well that he will not return, that he is only interested in the being elected to the Assembly… How not to see a certain indecency there?