Education Society in Modern France Ils 219 by W. R. Fraser

Author:W. R. Fraser [Fraser, W. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781136269752
Google: 7j_JAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-06-11T05:57:11+00:00

Chapter VIII

The Political Obstacle

THE quarrel about the subsidizing of denominational schools by the State is the contemporary expression of the religious conflict, and there seemed little hope of settling it in the French Assembly when the Billères bill was debated. ‘The school problem would be very easy to solve,’ writes J. Fauvet,1 ‘in terms of freedoms to be respected or even more simply of needs to be satisfied. Left in the framework to which it belongs, that of a village or a region, it can be settled concretely. Raised to the level of a national law it becomes philosophical, that is to say, insoluble. The most sincere Deputies resuscitate the quarrel over the separation of Church and State; they tend to arrive very soon at a discussion about the existence of God. And no doubt the school problem can be stated in these terms, but not solved in a country divided in its beliefs.’

Marxism-Leninism, the philosophy of what was then the largest single party in the French Assembly, has often been compared to a religious doctrine with its own hierarchy, martyrs and evangel. The Catholic Church in France certainly sees it as a strong rival system of thought. In theory, perhaps, the secular nature of the State ought to reassure both sides, and in fact some Catholic writers do welcome the lay State as a neutral institution having its own functions which are distinct from those of the Church. But when dispute over the control or financing of schools becomes heated we find militant secularists proclaiming an anti-clerical ‘lacisme’, and Church spokesmen condemning their rivals’ atheism and materialism; while both sides claim to be defending liberty. And since, historically, at the time of the disbanding of the teaching Congregations and of the separation of Church and State between 1882 and 1905, the lay schoolmaster did oust the priest in the name of secular education; and since he gives moral and civic instruction instead of teaching religion, he is said not only to have a professor’s chair but also a pulpit. (Both are represented by the one French word ‘chaire’) In the Third Republic the Radical-Socialist party displayed the most active anti-clericalism, but the Communist and Socialist parties are the chief heirs to that doctrine now.2 In the legislature of 1951–5, thirty-two of the fifty-six teachers, and in the Assembly elected in 1956 thirty-one out of eighty teachers were in the Socialist party (eighteen more being in the Communist group). Moreover, the Socialist party counts many teachers among its active agents.

The reflection of this ideological cleavage in the legislature was such as to inhibit action between 1951 and 1957. In 1951 the parties favouring subsidies to non-State schools polled 48% of the votes cast, the Socialists and Communists polled 41% and the balance was held by the centre group of Radical-Socialists and their allies. If this third group had voted unanimously according to its traditional radical anti-clericalism, then the secular vote would have been the larger. But in fact thirteen of them voted for the Loi Barangé in 1951, and so the measure became law.

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