Pap Ndiaye, to date director of the Museum of the History of Immigration, replaced Jean-Michel Blanquer on Friday May 20 as Minister of Education. This 55-year-old historian is a specialist in United States and racial issues.
This was no doubt the chef’s surprise. Pap Ndiaye, until now director of the National Museum of the History of Immigration – inaugurated by François Hollande in 2014 – has replaced Jean -Michel Blanquer as Minister of National Education. At age 56, this history graduate, United States specialist and minority was born in Antony (Hauts-de-Seine) to a Senegalese father and a French mother. Presenting himself as “a pure product of republican meritocracy”, the intellectual, a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure and also holding a doctorate obtained from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, is the older brother to writer Marie Ndiaye, Prix Goncourt 2009 for “Three Mighty Women”.
The arrival of Pap Ndiaye rue de Grenelle undoubtedly marked a pause in his pursuit. While Jean-Michel Blanquer, who holds a classic republican line, considers one “undefined by his supposed identity”, Pap Ndiaye adopts a different approach to identity questions, he mainly imported from the United States the concept of “black study.”. This concept aims to consider the existence of minorities in a society as a field of study – historical or sociological – in its own right. His book, “The Black Condition: Essay on a French Minority”, published in 2009, made Pap Ndiaye a pioneer in research on racial discrimination.
The fight against “Islamo-leftism”
“In everything related to minorities, Pap Ndiaye contains orientations that are definitely not the ones that Jean-Michel Blanquer implemented”, analyzes sociologist Michel Wieviorka. He’s also lucky that we can circulate between different cultures. ”“ In the field of History, he’s an innovative one, he’s already shown a new way of understanding the past. His work on the black presence in France was established ”, added the historian Pascal Blanchard, a specialist in colonization.
Known for his sense of consensus and a professor appreciated by his peers for many years at Sciences Po Paris, Pap Ndiaye, married and father of two, has recently been able to film his differences in his followed by the sulfur concept of “Islamo-leftism” in the ‘university. “An indisputable social fact”, for Jean-Michel Blanquer, “a term that does not teach any university truth”, defeated the new Minister of National Education. “Together with Jean-Michel Blanquer and Frédéric Vidal (former Minister of Higher Education, editor’s note), we have had a very troublesome university policy in recent months. Pap Ndiaye’s appointment has provided a boost. strong signal, it can calm a number of gritted teeth ”, analysis for The Dispatchpolitical scientist Virginie Martin.
In politics class, on the other hand, appointing someone, in an interview with world in 2017, it was confirmed that there was “structural racism” in France, sometimes very violently received, especially on the far right. “The appointment of Pap Ndiaye, a supposed indigenous, is the final stone in deconstructing our country, its values and its future”, Marine Le Pen considered in particular. “Emmanuel Macron said that the history of France needs to be deconstructed. Pap Ndiaye will take care of it,” replied another far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour. Elisabeth Borne, guest on 8 pm news from TF1 on Friday, defended the new minister, believing the attacks against her were “caricatural”, and assured that the historian was “a republican made, that believes in the values of the Republic. “