French schools finally teach sex education

Students in France will learn something new from September: sex, gender stereotypes and consensus.

Almost a quarter of a century after the French government approved a law that imposes-ma never put in act-sexual education for each student, has finally developed and approved a curriculum for sex education lessons, with a plan for the training of teachers and the materials of the course.

“We waited 25 years for this,” said Sarah Durocher, president of Le Planning Familial, a French equivalent of Planned Parenthood – one of the three non -profit organizations that the Government in 2023 for not having implemented their law.

That case must yet be resolved in court. But the government pushed the curriculum alone, for the protests of the opponents who criticized him as “Ideological brainwashing” AND harmful to the development of children.

More than 100 senators with the conservative party Les Républicains signed An editorial, published in Le Figaro The newspaper, opposite to the “alarm ideology” of the program and requests all the mentions of “gender identity”.

But Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of Education, defined the new “absolutely essential” program.

Highlighted the results of a Independent CommissionWhich has shown that a child in France is sexually abused every three minutes, mainly by a male member of their family. Many children now Discover sex from online pornography siteshe underlined.

Although the curriculum will come into force in September, the opponents are still fighting; A coalition of some groups has filed a cause to stop it in front of the administrative top court of France.

Activists and experts say that the adoption of the curriculum has been driven by the change of attitudes in France on sex by the #MeToo movement.

“Public opinion now understands that it is necessary to speak to children of this kind of thing, because otherwise they will remain in silence,” said Yves Verneuil, professor of education at the University of Lyon. “The Ministry, consequently, saw this change of mentality.”

The process highly advertised last autumn of dozens of men, deemed guilty to rape a woman named Gisèle Pelicot While it was deeply sedated, experts say. The case triggered the discussions across the country on the random banality of rape, on the objectivation of women and the lack of understanding of what consent is and how it should be given before sex.

“How did those men say they got consent when they saw a doped and distributed woman?” Mrs. Durocher said. “He raised the question of how we teach consent.”

On paper, the French government has offered sex education since 1973. But the courses were optional and parents could extract their children from them, explained Mr. Verneuil, the professor, who wrote a book On the history of sexual education in France.

In 2001, the government introduced a law that specifically requires three annual sex education sessions for each student. The following governments have expanded the content of the course to include not only the classes on sexually transmitted diseases and the risks of pregnancy, but sexism, homophobia, sexual violence and the concept of consent, said Verneuil.

However, no specific curriculum has been developed, no budgets or specialized training and no staff implemented to teach lessons, said Audrey Chanonat, leader of the French Union that represents the garrisons of middle and high schools.

At Cognac middle school, where it is principal, those courses took more than 100 hours of time.

“I don’t have the staff for this,” he said, observing that the staff has covered some of the topics in biology of the ninth elementary.

“A real educational program for sexual and intimate relationships with three hours per class? It does not exist almost anywhere,” said Mrs. Chanonat.

A Report 2021 From the Audit Department of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Research he confirmed the point of Mrs. Chanonat: only 15-20 % of French students were offered those three classes per year.

“It is clear that many students cross their whole school without having benefited from a single lesson,” says the report

The French feminist philosopher Camille Froidevaux-Medterie said that the inability to put sex education in schools reveals a profound social conservatism in France.

“Education on sex, but also on emotional and sexual relationships, is learning to respect others and the difference between sex and sexuality,” he said. “And this pushes against a conservative tradition that has always existed in France.”

The government continued to try to implement his law, but every time he was welcomed by a strong opposition, said Mrs. Froidevaux-Meterie.

In 2014, after the government trained teachers in 10 school districts to detect gender stereotypes and help children overcome them for a pilot program, some parents organized boycott and pulled out children out of school for two days. Activists who opposed gay marriage said the program would do it Destroy the traditional heterosexual family model and teaches children who could choose their kindR.

After a teacher was targeted on social media with personal threats, the program was cut, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said, who at the time was the Minister of Rights of the country’s women.

The opponents themselves protested and circulated the petitions last autumn and winter, opposing teaching on gender identity.

Ludovine de la Rochère, co-founder of the main French anti-gay marriage movement in the early 2010 years who later led the opposition to the sex education program, told a Catholic radio station that the program would have introduced to children the possibility of gender transition. Its organization is part of the coalition that sued to stop the first autumn sex education lessons.

The new curriculum, published last month in the official bulletin of the Ministry of Education, focuses on the issues of equality between men and women, the fight against discrimination, the principle of consent and the prevention of sexism and sexual violence.

Although they considered the cause of the celebration curriculum, activists who fought for this did not withdraw their cause against the government. Essential for its success, they say, it is the loan: up to 620 million euros per year, or 52 euros per student, for an estimate, which is about $ 67 million, or about $ 56 per student.

So far the Ministry of Education has not committed money.

“We know that implementation will be difficult,” said Mrs. Durocher. “It will be a new feminist battle.”

Ségolène The Stradic Research contribution.