{"id":66060,"date":"2022-11-28T01:07:23","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T06:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=66060"},"modified":"2022-11-28T01:07:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T06:07:23","slug":"increase-in-attacks-on-secularism-figures-that-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/increase-in-attacks-on-secularism-figures-that-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase in attacks on secularism: figures that question"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nSince the last school year, the wearing by pupils of signs intended for or with a religious connotation has experienced a significant increase, hence the importance taken on by the theme of\u00a0<\/span>\u201cattacks on secularism\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0We have thus gone from 313 reports of this order in September 2022 to 720 in October, more than double.<\/span><\/p>\n

A survey commissioned from the IFOP by the Jean Jaur\u00e8s and\u00a0<\/span>Charlie Hebdo<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Foundation , published in January 2021 following the attack on Samuel Paty and relating to ”\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>contestations of secularism<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and forms of religious separatism at school”, gave already worrying results.\u00a0Nearly one in two teachers (49%) claim to have been challenged in their teaching on religious issues;\u00a080% of teachers say they have been confronted at least once during their career with a claim related to religious beliefs (exemption from lessons, special menus in the canteen, etc.)\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

The survey also informed us, pushing the concern to its height, that 25% of teachers give Samuel Paty the wrong for having taught his course on freedom of expression from the cartoons of Muhammad.<\/span><\/p>\n

The publication on\u00a0<\/span>November 9, 2022<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of a ministerial circular details the responses that schools must give to these attacks.\u00a0It provides for a gradation of responses, ranging from dialogue with the student, the obligatory first step, to exclusion, the disciplinary councils being able to be relocated when the situation is deemed to be sensitive.<\/span><\/p>\n

The uncertain significance of an already ancient phenomenon<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In truth, the problem is far from new.\u00a0It was already he who intended to resolve the\u00a0<\/span>2004 law<\/span><\/a>\u00a0prohibiting the conspicuous wearing of religious symbols at school.\u00a0The same year, a report by the general inspectorate, presented by Jean-Pierre Obin (\u00a0<\/span>Signs and manifestations of religious affiliation in schools<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0) already warned of the growing importance of the phenomenon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two years earlier, the collective work\u00a0<\/span>Les Territoires perdus de la R\u00e9publique<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0was published , denouncing the growing manifestations of anti-Semitism on the part of students of Muslim origin.\u00a0Since then, the alarm has sounded regularly, especially when minutes of silence organized in schools in 2015 after the attack on\u00a0<\/span>Charlie Hebdo<\/span><\/em>\u00a0were disrupted or, more\u00a0<\/span>recently<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, in the context of the assassination of Samuel Paty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Challenges to the principle of secularism in schools have therefore been the subject of public concern for at least twenty years, or even nearly 35 years, if we trace the history back to the\u00a0<\/span>first cases<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of the veil in school, at the start of the 1989 school year. However, the very permanence of the phenomenon, its periodic return to the forefront of the political and\/or media scene, is not without posing to the very notion of “attack on secularism” a certain number of problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first of these is that such a recurrence is likely to relativize the importance of the phenomenon.\u00a0Since the time it has lasted and been denounced, progress has hardly been apparent.\u00a0720 reports last October is obviously much more than the 313 recorded in September.\u00a0But on the one hand, this increase is not so easy to interpret: does it reflect an objective increase in the number of cases of violation of the principle of secularism or a lesser reserve on the part of the establishments to report them?\u00a0On the other hand, compared to the 60,000 establishments (schools, colleges, high schools) existing in France, the proportion remains low.<\/span><\/p>\n

The question also arises as to whether it is appropriate to isolate the behaviors identified as “attacks on the principle of secularism” from other manifestations of contestation in general of a school order that a certain number of pupils seem to have more more difficult to integrate.\u00a0It would also be interesting to know what are the specific school contexts in which these challenges are observed: not all establishments, including in sensitive areas, are equally exposed to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

This would make it possible to build representations of reality that are much finer and more circumspect than those offered to public opinion by a certain media-political discourse, and which can lead to excessive dramatization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surveys not compatible with each other<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Attacks on secularism in schools are all the more difficult to assess as recent surveys do not all point in the same direction.\u00a0We can thus compare the survey of the Jean Jaur\u00e8s foundation to another, carried out a year earlier, in January 2020, by the CNESCO (National Center for the Study of School Systems, now dissolved).\u00a0It was entitled\u00a0<\/span>“Secularism and religion within the school: an evaluation of the civic attitudes of middle school and high school students”<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, and was conducted with 1,600 third and final year students, 500 teachers and 350 school leaders. ‘establishment.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what does this survey show?\u00a0Almost exactly the opposite of what that of the Jean Jaur\u00e8s Foundation was moved by: \u201cwithin the school, the students, and even more the education staff [\u2026] very much adhere to the principle of secularism\u201d .\u00a0Thus, 90% of middle school students and 91% of high school students consider that tolerance between them is important or very important, including with regard to students of another religion;\u00a091% of students (third and final year classes combined) believe that teachers respect them regardless of their beliefs or opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, very few headteachers (2% in middle school, less than 1% in high school) report encountering major problems with teaching being questioned or students refusing to participate, for religious reasons, in certain school activities.\u00a0So, concludes the report of the CNESCO, that the French pupils testify of an adhesion to the principle of secularity definitely higher than their European fellow-students.<\/span>
\n