Edouard Philippe started his visit by attending the start of the school year in Quartier d'Orléans.
A few seconds after the bell rang at Clair Saint-Maximim primary school in Quartier d'Orléans ten minutes before 8 a.m., the Prime Minister arrived. The parents had just dropped off their children who were making their return to school. Alongside the president of the community, the vice-president in charge of education, the rector and the head of the education service in Saint-Martin, Edouard Philippe went to meet the director who made him an update on the situation in terms of damage caused by Irma, workforce and personnel. He then went to shake hands with some children sitting on a bench in the yard. "The Prime Minister loves children, he is going to talk to them," a person close to him told us the day before.
The bell rang a second time announcing the time to return to class. Edouard Philippe accompanied CP students to join their teacher. In class, he put on his jacket and sat at a table observing for ten minutes the work of the teacher with his sixteen students, alternating between French and English. The children recited a poetry learned before the holidays, sang the hymn of Saint Martin before starting work with a book.
When he left, the Prime Minister considered that “this return to school had gone well in circumstances which are obviously very specific”. Part of the roof of the establishment was torn off and "a number of items of equipment" were lost, including the computer room. More generally, “the students whose establishments were destroyed were redirected to other schools, the classes were reconstituted, so we have a return that is generally going well, and it is essential. This is one of the elements of returning to normal, ”Edouard Philippe told the media.
The message he wanted to send this morning alongside the Ministers of Education and of the French overseas departments is that once "emergency management is over, life has to start all over again". But to clarify: "not normally because there is nothing normal at the moment in Saint-Martin."
"Seven hundred teachers are present, which represents around 90% of teachers in Saint-Martin, the others are on sick leave, which is not surprising given the physical or psychological trauma that the hurricane may have caused", announced the Ministry of Education. Regarding the students, between 90 and 95% of them are present.
Finally, Jean-Michel Blanquer thanked “the mobilization of the entire public service, all the services of the community as well as the entire population. For him, it is "a beautiful sign of national unity and unity of Saint-Martin to have succeeded in a few weeks in doing what seemed almost impossible seven weeks ago".
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