Quotes from Najat Vallaud-Belkacem

It was the students who entered kindergarten in 2011 who are - and I am weighing my words carefully - the sacrificed generation. It is they who have paid a high price for the politics of yesterday - that is to say, the government of Mr. Fillon.

School is at once a place of hope, but it's also a laboratory that exposes our differences.

Is it written that equality between men and women means one can change sex? Obviously not.

We have to be careful not to have a form of militant secularism in our country, which is counter-productive for children we would like to see - adhere - to secularism.

School was always a major player in my personal journey. It allowed me to open up to the world, and also social mobility. It allowed me to enrich myself, to read, learn and understand.

Do we have to give Mr Sarkozy a history lesson? Yes, there are Gauls among our ancestors. But there are also Romans, Normans, Celts, Nicois, Corsicans, Arabs, Italians, Spanish. That's France.

I molded myself against le Front National. Against hate speech, be it racist, sexist, xenophobic, or homophobic. Against the kind of injustice I faced during my own life.

I feel totally French - I don't feel half-French because of my dual nationality. For me, dual nationality just means I don't deny my roots.

It's more necessary than ever before to ensure that discernment and the development of a critical mind guide our take on the world and inform our relationship to the media and information.

Our universities also have a lot of foreign students. Are we going to ban them access because in their culture there's a certain type of clothing?

I would like all French children to have unlimited opportunities opened up for them as French minister of education.

The proliferation of bans fuels stereotypes and discriminates against a community.

I have a chart for success at school because it gave me a great deal of pleasure. It opened my mind to the world. I learned to read.

On certain, delicate subjects, bringing in outsiders to talk about values is pertinent because pupils listen to them more attentively.

Teachers alone can't educate young people.

By continuing to increase teacher recruitment and training - and ameliorating wages and working conditions - we will be able to shore up the weaknesses of the French education system.

Equality in education is my number one battle.