“Schools are completely neglected”

I moved to Paris in the middle of a pandemic and, afraid of not getting a job, applied for a position as a language assistant. But I was pushed for another reason. At the time, France was torn about its school system and The companies came under heavy criticism. Newspapers talk about unmanageable classes and indolence of teachers. The dangerous term “Islamo-Leftism” mixed with multiculturalism and academic laxity was on everyone’s lips. At this time, Le Figaro He published articles on the dangers of vokism. As for the companies, they have no say in the debate

I was sent to high school in Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest part of metropolitan France, northeast of the capital. During the first meeting of teaching assistants, at the beginning of the school year in September 2021, my new colleagues and I gathered in an auditorium, where two women sent by the Ministry of Education told us about our work. Other English-speaking recruits were fresh out of university. A YouTube video titled “What the F*ck France” A British actor voiced it: “I have 99 problems and they are all management’s fault.” “We hope this makes it a little easier for you”, A speaker tried to convince us. She told us how to open a bank account and look for accommodation. While very clear: we should not expect her to help us.

As English assistants, our job is to make students speak our mother tongue for twelve hours a week. All for 976.48 euros per month. “You are now agents of the French government. She told us. So if any discriminatory comments are heard even among students, it should be reported to the director. If you see young people showing their religion or expressing their faith, tell someone, She listed. If you see a woman wearing a headscarf, report her. If it is not forbidden to discuss with students the religion of the country of our birth, then on the other hand we cannot tell them what we believe. Same goes for politics. Then a young assistant raised his hand. “Is that good?” On the logo of his laptop, he affixed a Notre-Dame rose window sticker. The speaker glared at him: “You shouldn’t exaggerate, though.”

A large building with crumbling walls

It took me an hour to get to school from my apartment in the center of Paris. The last mile of the bus took as long as the first part of the journey. I don’t know if I’m going to get a bus or not.

One day, as I was waiting for the bus in front of the station, I saw a Latin teacher kneeling next to him. High volume. The man was curled up in front of a bakery’s ventilation grill, and when Samu arrived, paramedics immediately asked him what he had taken. All the students who were already lagging behind stood to watch the scene.

The station area was largely suburban, a remnant of a time when the white working class yearned to have their own home and garden. After the pavilions, the shops are specifically targeted at the Muslim population. A hairdresser advertises a space reserved for veiled women so that they can have their hair cut in sight. By the time we find the school, the first suburb has been replaced by something else entirely: this is the city – a group of great bars