Perhaps you are organized to get pick up your child at the crèche earlier this Monday. At the call of several managers of managers, microcrèche managers are called upon to close at 4 p.m. today to protest against a draft government decree which plans to modify the rules of reception and supervision of children.
The discontent began to rise in December, when several federations in the sector pointed out the project now carried out by the Minister of Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families Catherine Vautrin. “The government intends to organize the greatest social plan ever imagined in early childhood by providing in the coming years the disappearance of microcrès”, then set out in a joint statement the FES (Federation of Personal Services), the FFEC ( French Federation of Crèches Companies), FEDESAP (Federation of Personal Services and Proximity) and the REMI (grouping of microcrèche companies).
Pros difficult to recruit
What gets stuck for these managers of these small structures, who can accommodate twelve children, “is that the government wants to impose a quota of childcare or young children’s educators, profiles of professionals who do not exist not currently on the job market, ”sums up with 20 Minutes Jimmy Dacquin, administrator at the FFEC and founder of a network of microcrès.
Currently, these structures can accommodate their children by having 60 % of the holders of CAP early childhood in their teams and 40 % of childcare graduates or young children’s educators. By way of derogation, these 40 % more graduate profiles can be replaced by CAPs with at least two years of experience.
End of derogations
The draft decree intends to end this derogation, which would oblige microcrès to strengthen the workforce with these more graduate profiles, the childcare assistant being the equivalent of a bac level and the educator of a bac + 3 . “With this project, that means that the CAPs that work in our structures will no longer have a margin of evolution”, deplores Mehdi Tibourtine, Deputy Director of the FES. Like Jimmy Dacquin, Mehdi TibOUTINE underlines the scarcity of these profiles on the job market. The sector also agitates the threat of CAP dismissals to have to replace them with more graduate profiles, a threat dismissed by the minister’s office.
Among the grievances of the sector, also is what they consider an inequality of treatment with other early childhood players. “Currently, a person with a CAP can accommodate three children alone in the morning and in the evening,” recalls Mehdi Tibourtine. With the draft decree, it will take the presence of a childcare assistant or an educator of young children. “As an illustrative basis, a childminder can accommodate six children alone. We are not in the opposition of childcare methods, but it is to show the lack of consistency. »»
“In a complicated period”
For Mehdi TibOUTINE, this government project falls at a time when the sector is in difficulty and when the number of graduates is not enough to meet demand. “At the national level, the microcrèches bring together 7,000 structures, 95,000 children’s reception places and 35,000 employees,” he said. If the sector brings together behemoths such as the blue house or celebrity and baby, whose management was pointed out in a book investigation by Victor Castanet in 2024, the representative of the FESS wants to dismiss the “fantasies”: “The vast majority of Our managers have one, two or three microcrès. We are in a complicated period, we never had so many failures. »»
Today, federations want to be heard by the ministry. “We say yes of course more quality and more professionalization, but these elements cannot be decorated with realities,” summarizes Mehdi Tibourtine.
The Minister wants to be “very firm on checks”
Within the sector, however, not all professionals have the same reading of the decree provided by the government. The union of early childhood professionals supports it, calling for “respect for legal quotas”. “40 % of professionals holding a childcare degree, young children’s educator or childcare nurse is a minimum guaranteeing quality and safety, while valuing state diplomas (CAPs). »»
Minister Catherine Vautrin has repeatedly defended her project, including Friday in a letter sent to mayors, that 20 Minutes consulted. She indicates that the decree is being examined by the Council of State and adds to it that “the priority of this measure is the quality of the reception of children, and the implementation of the guarantees necessary for the reception is respectful of their needs and rights ”.
On January 24, she announced that she would be “very firm on checks”: “By September 2026, microcrèches will have to comply with the same qualifying standards as small crèches, which is not the case today Hui. »»
Declarations which follow several journalistic revelations on the reception conditions in certain large private groups of crèches. After these revelations, and the death of an eleven -month -old child in 2022 in Lyon in a structure belonging to a private group, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs had rendered in March 2023 a report pointing “a particularly heterogeneous quality of reception In the reception establishments for young children (crèches and microcrès), the sector with high quality establishments, carried by an in -depth educational reflection, as very degraded quality establishments ”.
(tagstotranslate) News