2004 Act which prohibits “wearing insignia or clothing by which students appear to demonstrate religious affiliation” changed the life of educational institutions? Twenty years after the adoption of this text, which is supposed to clarify the rules applicable in schools, it is today the subject of a broad consensus among teachers and school principals. Although the fault lines persist.
When the text was announced on 15 March 2004, the debates were lively. The school management was working “in the greatest obscurity”, in the words of one of them. “I remember the questions it raised when young girls came to class wearing headscarves.recalls Iannis Roder, professor of history and co-author of the book Preserve secularism (L’Observatoire, 200 pages, 20 euros), who has been teaching since 1998. It was necessary to prove that there was proselytism… Business bosses were regularly embarrassed. »
In the early 2000s, “affairs” broke out here and there, especially in facilities in working-class neighborhoods where Muslim students are more present. “There was a pressure that obviously wasn’t exerted everywhere, but that was there”recalls Philippe Guittet, who was then director and general secretary of the SNPDEN-UNSA trade union, and in 2003 he was interviewed in this capacity by the commission led by Bernard Stasi, responsible for the work on the text.
The law “cleared things up”
“Our union was fierce for this text, with the collective Ni putes ni submissives and the UNSA-Education union.”, reports the former director. The other teachers’ unions did not comment, and even a minority of them were concerned: “There was still the idea that banning something was never a good idea”summarizes Philippe Guittet.
Ghislaine Hudson, who was director at the time and the only member of the Stasi commission in that capacity, remembers it. “I wasn’t in favor from the beginningshe says. I was afraid that this ban would create tension, that it would create more problems than it would solve. And I wasn’t the only one: many members of the commission had their doubts. For example, there were fears that young veiled girls would drop out of school. » The director, who had in the meantime become a mediator of the Paris Academy, finally voted for the text “after much hesitation” AND “because it was necessary to find a form of common rule in devices”.
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