France's new Education Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra is coming under increasing pressure over her decision for her children to attend a private school, in a row overshadowing President Emmanuel Macron's attempt to relaunch his second term with a reshuffle.
Opponents have questioned her insistence that she sent one child to a private school over short staffing at his public establishment, in an increasingly bitter and personal dispute.
She said she had chosen to go private because of "loads of teaching hours without a serious replacement" teacher at her son's public school. Speaking to reporters on her first visit to a school as minister, she said she had been "fed up, like hundreds of thousands of families" across France.
Oudéa-Castéra was one of the main winners in last week's reshuffle, with the former French junior tennis champion given the education ministry alongside her existing portfolio as sports minister. Heading the new super ministry, she will be leading preparations for the 2024 Olympics in Paris as well as handling one of the most sensitive issues in French politics.
All three sons of Oudéa-Castéra, who is married to the president of French pharma giant Sanofi Frédéric Oudéa, have instead attended the prestigious Stanislas school, a Catholic institution near her home in Paris. The private school has been under investigation by the education ministry since last year over press reports of homophobic and sexist behavior.
But the newspaper Libération reported Sunday that Oudéa-Castéra's son had not been affected by staffing gaps at public school, citing the nursery school teacher who had his class in 2009. The family in fact chose to move the child to the private school because the public one would not bump him up a year, the teacher said.
Oudéa-Castéra "categorically denies the claims reported by Libération," her office told Agence France-Presse. "We have to close this chapter of personal attacks and personal life," the minister herself appealed on a Monday morning visit to a Paris school, saying she had "tried to respond as sincerely as possible."
Teachers' unions – already fuming that education has been merged into a multiple ministry – and the political opposition have seized on the report to launch a broadside against the new minister. "It's a double fault to the minister! This match is starting off really well!" said Guislaine David, spokesperson for primary school teachers' union SNUipp-FSU, referring to Oudéa-Castéra's earlier tennis career.
The new minister is scheduled to meet education union representatives from Monday, her office said. "If the minister really lied... (she) has no place at the head of the education ministry," Rodrigo Arenas, an MP for the hard-left LFI party and former head of a nationwide parents' federation, wrote on X.
The Oudéa-Castéra row has sucked the air out of Macron's hope that a new, smaller ministerial team around youngest-ever Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, 34, could help regain his administration's momentum.