The 55-year-old academic, so far at the head of the French National Museum in the History of Immigration, was appointed, Friday, in the Borne government to take over from Jean-Michel Blanquer.
by (with AFP)
This is one of the new faces of the Borne government. The historian PAP Ndiaye was appointed Minister of National Education and Youth on Friday, May 20, announced the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, replacing Jean-Michel Blanquer who remained five years on rue de Grenelle. The school is presented as one of the three major projects of the new five -year term of Emmanuel Macron.
This 55-year-old French academic, a specialist in the social history of the United States and minorities, was so far at the head of the French National Museum in the History of Immigration. In the spring of 2021, he was appointed to this position by Emmanuel Macron who claimed new blood. Worried about the identity tensions that have risen in France for a few years, the head of state had been looking for a place, and a person, to appease the debate. “A year before the presidential election, the president wanted a symbolic change to the museum, explained to the world, Mercedes Erra, co-founder of the Betc communication agency and president of the board of directors of the Palais de la Cerpme Dorée, in June 2021 . A media director, peacemaker, who would come out of the conservative seraglio. “
According to sociologist Michel Wieviorka, reality would be very political: “The Head of State wanted to launch a political signal to counterbalance the positions of ministers Jean-Michel Blanquer [Education], Frédérique Vidal [Higher Education] and Gérald Darmanin [interior]. “All three have denounced in recent months the” ravages of Islamo-leftism “.
master of his emotions
At the beginning of February 2021, when Frédérique Vidal sparked controversy on “Islamo-leftism” at university, Pap Ndiaye felt danger. But “I had the obligation to intervene, otherwise I lost all credibility”, he explained to the world in 2021. On France Inter, he took his sweetest voice to assert: “This term of Islamo-leftism does not designate any reality at the university. What strikes me above all is the degree of ignorance of the political world of research that is carried out at the University in Social Sciences and Human Sciences. “
Perfectly master of her emotions, the brother of Marie Ndiaye, writer winner of Femina and Goncourt, also knows how to frame those of others. Valentine Umansky, curator of the Tate Modern in London, who knew her professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS), never heard her raised his voice: “He never goes into the conflict, Even with the most swept people, it is disarming in every sense of the word. “
Since he wrote the black condition (Calmann-Lévy), in 2008, the first notorious study of French Black Studies, the Pap Ndiaye coast goes up among politicians, reassured by his side detached from the struggle of races and class struggle. They also saw it at work in cultural institutions. In 2019, the Orsay Museum integrated it into the scientific committee of the exhibition “Le Model Noir, from Géricault to Matisse”, a great success of the year. His models are saxophonists, writers – Aimé Césaire, the poet of negritude, is his idol.