Ministers are now giving schools just one year to turnaround or face being closed or replaced - a point they highlighted in commenting on the annual report from the inspectorate, Ofsted, which showed 13% of secondary schools inspected last year were judged inadequate.
Now he is ensnared in just the sort of investigation he thought would help turn France's finances around, as prosecutors take a close look at an online journal's allegations that he transferred money from a Swiss account into one in Singapore.