This is the (only?) surprise of the Borne 1 government. After four days of waiting since his appointment to Matignon, the composition of the government was finally unveiled this Friday afternoon, as usual, from the steps of the Elysium.
Some remain in post, others rise in rank or arrive. And among these new ones, we find Pap Ndiaye, who inherits National Education and Youth. The historian therefore replaces Jean-Michel Blanquer, given away after five years at the head of the rue de Grenelle.
Specialist of the United States and minorities
A 56-year-old academic, specialist in the social history of the United States and minorities, Pap Ndiaye was until now at the head of the French National Museum of the History of Immigration. Born of a Senegalese father and a French mother, this researcher was a professor for many years at Sciences Po Paris, where he is appreciated by his peers and is a “size” on issues related to minorities.
“In the field of history, he was someone who was innovative, he was able to show a new way of understanding the past. His work on the black presence in France is seminal,” says historian Pascal Blanchard, a historian specializing in colonization. “He’s a practitioner, who teaches, who knows what it’s like to be in front of a class of students! It’s good to go find a pedagogue at a time when there is a malaise among teachers”, he adds, also welcoming “someone who listens to diversity” and “knows the issues international”. “On everything relating to minorities, he embodies orientations which are certainly not those that Jean-Michel Blanquer has implemented”, analyzes sociologist Michel Wieviorka. “He is also lucky to be able to move us between different cultures”, the United States, Africa and France.
“I assume myself as is with my skin color”
A former student of the École Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud, a history graduate and holder of a doctorate from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Pap Ndiaye is the older brother of the writer Marie NDiaye , Prix Goncourt 2009. He studied in the United States from 1991 to 1996 and became known to the general public by publishing in 2008 The Black Condition, an essay on a French minorityhis reference work.
In 2019, always with the desire to popularize his subjects of study, he became scientific advisor to the exhibition The black model, at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, on the representation of blacks in the visual arts. More recently, he co-presented in 2020 a report on diversity at the Paris Opera. When he arrived at the head of the French National Museum of the History of Immigration in March 2021, he told AFP that his appointment was a symbol for young “non-whites”, even if it was “d ‘first due’ to his work as a historian and his ‘long career as an academic’. “I assume myself as is with my skin color,” he added.
“Someone who manages to pacify tensions”
Reputed to be a supporter of consensus, his personality could be an asset in promoting reconciliation with the teaching world, which is very critical of Jean-Michel Blanquer. “He is diplomatic in his way of being to others. It’s good because it’s a ministry that needs diplomacy, ”said Pascal Blanchard. “He’s a very thoughtful, very composed person”, abounds Michel Wieviorka. “If he has the means to have the politics he can embody, as an intellectual personality, I think we will go in a new direction”.
For Louis-Georges Tin, former president of the Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN), of which Pap Ndiaye was vice-president of the scientific council, it is also “someone who manages to pacify tensions”, who “creates consensus from above” and “respectful”. The arrival at the National Education of Pap Ndiaye, who had signed a platform in 2012 calling for a vote for François Hollande, arouses surprise. “I am stunned by this news. For me Pap Ndiaye was not at all in there. What is certain is that it was necessary to “unblock” National Education”, reacted to AFP the deputy LFI Alexis Corbière. But “this media stunt, the only one from this dull government, will not defuse the deep anger in the National Education”, he believes. For the Snes-FSU, the main secondary school teachers’ union, “the appointment of Pap Ndiaye is a break with Jean-Michel Blanquer in more ways than one”. But “National Education is not governed solely by symbols,” he warns in a press release. “The emergencies are real, rapid responses are expected, particularly in terms of wages”.
Already the target of the far right
The appointment of Pap Ndiaye did not fail to react to the far right, which directly attacked the new tenant on rue de Grenelle this Friday. “The appointment of Pap Ndiaye, an assumed indigenist, to National Education is the last stone in the deconstruction of our country, its values and its future,” Marine Le Pen said on Twitter.
“Emmanuel Macron said that we had to deconstruct the history of France. Pap Ndiaye will take care of it, ”reacted Eric Zemmour.