Church, State and Schools in France

...There is no tax incentive to encourage philanthropic gifts to the schools, as in the United States...

...This was too much for Boulloche, and he promptly resigned in protest against the "clerical" bill...

...on the other hand, saw the schools as training centers through which the new democratic regime could be consolidated...

...3. They could sign a convention with the Government whereby the state would take over the teachers' salaries and the teachers would become state employes...

...At the head of the commission...

...There were demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, innumerable declarations by leaders and lobbyists on both sides, and threats of resignation from several ministers...

...In addition, the Church has been active in developing technical schools, particularly in rural areas...

...During the 19th century, militant Catholic pressure groups, often acting out of political rather than religious convictions, saw in the Church schools the long-range weapon to fight democracy and insure the return of the Monarchy...

...On major issues, such as those of fiscal and social reform, benefits to the working classes...

...Guy Mollet took the offensive during the debate by warning that if the Left returns to power it would immediately nationalize the schools that had signed contracts...

...This case was particularly designed to accommodate parochial schools made up of "Christian Brothers" or nuns, who could not become state functionaries...

...Working in complete secrecy and facing a very short deadline, the commission finally presented a tentative program in November...

...With good will on both sides, however, and with the passage of time, the issue may pass out of petty politics into the realm of social adjustment within local communities, where it stands a better chance of being settled along more pragmatic lines...

...MRP Catholics, for example, have given such social, political and economic leadership to their party that it is now as socially minded and as liberal as the SFIO...

...giving both public and private schools eight dollars a year per child...

...who was promptly excluded from his party for accepting this responsibility, started down a trail that two other commissions since 1947 had found impossibly tortuous...

...On the basis of the report, he worked out what was supposed to be the Government bill, which differed in two essential respects from the Lapie proposals: (1) It eliminated entirely the fourth choice, the simpler contract, and (2) it outlined such stiff state supervision of education in those parochial schools which accept the contract proposals that it was difficult to see the advantage of a "convention contract" over pure integration...

...The quarrel finally degenerated to the point where the schools were considered by both sides as nothing but centers of political indoctrination...

...There is to be no state control over the subjects taught or books used, and the schools are allowed to keep their "particular character...

...The state, with already vastly overcrowded schools, has recognized that it has neither the means nor the facilities to replace the existing parochial school system: it has realized that some support for the private schools was necessary...

...Upon these skeletal provisions will be built the actual applications of the law, and most observers feel that this can range from tight control to a complete hands-off policy...

...Thus the new bill seems to be promoting open warfare on the school issue, rather than insuring an eventual peaceful solution...

...The new legislation constitutes a challenge to the "laic" element of the country, a challenge which both the Communists and Socialists will exploit for all it is worth...

...they are hardly representative of a nation whose past voting record seems to indicate no overwhelming support of state aid to parochial schools...

...In return, the Government would require the schools to admit all children, regardless of religion, and the amount of control it would exert over the curricula, textbooks, and qualification of the teachers would be determined in each case by the specific contract...

...Boswell, a former Smith College professor, has been studying the intricacies of French politics at first hand for six years...

...In 1951 the Government passed the Barange Law...

...The wording of the final bill, passed by the National Assembly on December 23 by a vote of 427-71, will call for the wisdom of Solomon in its application...

...and a constitutional committee ruled in the middle of this debate that a government decree applying a general law could not be overruled by legislative action...

...Partisans on both sides—the anticlerical Socialists, Communists and Radicals, on the one hand, and the pro-Catholic Gaullist Union for the New Republic (UNR) and Popular Republicans ( MRP...

...The new legislation has rekindled the deep-seated flames of conflict between the clericals and the anti-clericals...

...The national commission would become an advisory body for the Government on further school legislation...

...It was practically impossible to define these nice distinctions rigidly, since the bill was applicable to all the different types of schools, including non-Catholic private institutions...

...The Lapie commission also proposed machinery designed to promote long-term association and cooperation between the two school systems, to break down the prevailing ignorance and antagonism...

...To help effect this, it proposed a permanent national commission and several departmental commissions to study the evolution of the programs and recommend changes in the law...

...The Socialists, spurred more by political considerations than by the issue itself, will have to rush to attack the bill, if they don't want to be outdone by the Communists or the newly formed Autonomist Socialist party...

...The Catholics feared that Boulloche or his successors might try to subvert the intent of the bill by imposing a "neutral" form of instruction on all schools seeking aid from the state...

...In short, they demanded that it be St...

...on the other— are dissatisfied with the Government's compromise measure...

...the political climate in which it was passed was not conducive to a lessening of antagonisms...

...The proponents of state aid to parochial schools tried at one point to push a more extreme measure through by virtue of their large majority, a move blocked only by the influence which de Gaulle exerted for a more moderate bill...

...The democratic forces...

...However, the danger of extreme action on both sides is very real...

...Both these factors tend to put a large part of the private and parochial school costs directly upon the parents concerned, who are not normally in a position to pay a realistic tuition and who are psychologically committed to France's centralization and to its growing role as a welfare state...

...Private schools were offered four different choices: 1. They could choose complete integration into the public school system...

...Radical Socialists and Catholic moderates...

...Debre appointed a 12-man commission to explore the problem and offer viable solutions...

...The bill—the first to give state aid to Roman Catholic schools—provides that the Government will pay the salaries of teachers in those parochial schools which will admit all students, regardless of religion...

...The Lapie program included a number of highly flexible procedures to take varying local conditions into account...

...Many political observers hold that the school issue is the only remaining element preventing the formation of a center-left coalition of Socialists...

...of course, the harder, but more equitable, approach to a long-range solution...

...But the Government's economic policies are not designed to encourage the growth or support of private schools...

...In the past 50 years, however, both sides have grown closer together and today there is little basis in fact for the continued existence of a "clerical" quarrel...

...During the Resistance, Catholics and Socialists worked closely together, and since the war the MRP and the Socialists (SFIO) have been kept apart mainly by historical, and often artificial, differences...

...A new drive for the passage of a school aid bill was started after the November elections, which gave President Charles de Gaulle a majority powerful enough to pass any school law he wished...

...The President, however, ignored the issue and it was not until the UNR and Moderate deputies, under pressure from the Church and Catholic laymen in their home districts, began clamoring loudly for a new bill that either de Gaulle or Premier Michel Debre would listen...

...Proponents of the private schools rose up in arms...

...The necessity for some kind of school legislation was made apparent at least three years ago...

...Each phrase and sentence, therefore, had to be screened meticulously to see whether the "specific character" of the school was threatened by the state's right of control...

...Their attitude is the more disturbing since these are largely people who rode to office on de Gaulle's coat tails...

...Although it did not participate in the cabinet headed by Socialist leader Guy Mollet, the MRP never failed to give him its full support...

...Finally, in the spring of 1959...

...The controversy over Boulloche's revisions centered around the amount of influence the state ought to exert over the private schools' programs...

...Socialist deputy Pierre Lapie...

...The long-range effects of the new bill can hardly be measured now, since much depends on its application...

...Private and parochial schools handle about 20 per cent of the primary school children and about 40 per cent of the students in secondary schools...

...World concern with the Algerian crisis has diverted attention from an older, more divisive domestic issue, state aid to parochial schools, which, as George B. Boswell notes, mirrors France's profound Church-State split...

...At the time, the Barange Law was hailed as a triumph for the parochial schools, since it was the first overt rejection of the principle of separation of Church and State: but since then inflation has so depreciated the value of the aid that its effect has become almost negligible...

...The commission apparently was divided as to whether this should be a transitional stage toward a full contract or whether it should be permanent...

...Obviously, much depends on the wisdom of the next Minister of Education, who will be required to shape the decrees and define the application of the new bill...

...It specifically stated that schools under convention contracts had to give "neutral" instruction, thus negating the very purpose of the legislation, since parochial schools could then no longer base their classes on Christian principles...

...the degree of participation by the private schools will depend on the liberty which they are granted in providing a Christian rather than a neutral education...

...The economic pinch on the private and parochial schools has become particularly acute in recent years due to the effects of inflation...

...As one might expect in a predominantly Catholic country, the role of the Church in education is important...

...The financial situation of the parochial schools had become critical: Their salaries were 50 to 75 per cent lower than those of the state school teachers and many institutions were on the verge of collapse...

...2. They could choose complete freedom, without Government controls, but also without any Government aid whatsoever...

...CHURCH, STATE AND SCHOOLS IN FRANCE Wise use of new law providing state aid to parochial schools can resolve old conflict By George B. Boswell PARIS ALTHOUGH France has at last passed a bill insuring state aid to parochial schools, the bitterness it engendered still hangs in the air...

...Private schools are even subject to the patente, a local tax which in some areas can be relatively high...

...Finally Debre assumed the responsibility of drawing up a compromise solution, and he spent the first weeks of December—right up to December 23, the day the bill was presented to the National Assembly—feverishly working out an acceptable compromise...

...The Lapie report was turned over to Minister of National Education Andre Boulloche, an administrative rather than political figure and a member of the Socialist party, though not an official representative of the SFIO in the Government...

...policy toward overseas territories— especially Algeria—the MRP has steadily taken a stand close to that of the SFIO...

...Furthermore, under the constitution of the Fifth Republic, the bill can only be a general definition of intent, whose specific application is to be defined by government decree...

...Fortunately, the tone will not be set by political speeches in the National Assembly but by the actions of local administrators at the working level—in the towns, counties and departments—in terms of practical issues...

...Or the Catholic lobbyists may seek to obtain special advantages through an overly liberal interpretation of the act...

...If either side should take such a course, the search for a truce will end...

...4. They could sign a simpler contract by which the Government would assume no more than 60 per cent of the teachers' salaries and would exert about that much control over the type of instruction...

...While they accepted the right of the state to veto certain textbooks, they refused to admit the state's authority to impose given texts...

...By 1958 the school issue could no longer be swept under the carpet...

...While they admitted that the state ought to have some control over the education in state-supported schools, and even over the ideological and political orientation of that education, the Catholics wanted to insure the Christian foundations of their education as well as the use of time for religious instruction, prayers, etc...

...Joan and not Joan of Arc that would be taught in their classrooms...

...And in the midst of all the controversy, the Government itself faces a Herculean task in carrying out the provisions of the new bill without creating more antagonisms...

...For example, the Left may make a concerted effort to block application of the legislation, boycotting the mixed conciliation commissions, refusing all contracts with some of the parochial schools as well as with the authorities who will be applying the legislation, etc...

...This is...

...But the new bill has so reactivated the old political prejudices and so spurred the traditional battle cries that conciliation is very unlikely...

...The roots of the controversy extend deep into French history...

...As it stands, the private schools that enter into contract with the state will retain their special character, but will have to admit all students...