French Public Schools No Longer Protect Against Islamism, On The Contrary...

With his law against “separatism,” French President Emmanuel Macron has sacrificed parents’ rights and missed his objectives.

Op-ed first published in French in Valeurs Actuelles on August 24, 2024.

This summer, a child as young as 12 was found guilty of “support for acts of terrorism.” For two years, he had been watching and sharing thousands of Islamic State propaganda videos, without anyone noticing. Beside his youth, which precludes any strong criminal prosecution, what is striking about this umpteenth story of radicalization is that he was not in the 6^th grade of an Islamist school or being homeschooled by radical parents, but that he was actually attending a state secondary school.

And therein lies the major snag in the plan to combat Islamic separatism that French President Emmanuel Macron has been promoting for the past three years, the collateral victims of which are now tens of thousands of parents.

Let’s recap. On August 24, 2021, the “Law Reinforcing Respect for the Principles of the Republic” is passed following a Presidential speech of October 2, 2020 against “separatism.” On that day, Emmanuel Macron went to war against home schooling. Why would he do this? Because according to him, there are dangerous extremists lurking there. The President has found them, and he wants them all in school, from the age of 3, a school “which must once again become the republican melting pot.” So much for parents’ rights and fundamental freedoms, the situation is too serious: thousands of children would be excluded from citizenship education…

Important point: experts will be auditioned to prepare the bill, but they will not be heard, despite the clarity of their findings. Their conclusion is that not a single homeschooled child is being monitored for radicalization or found guilty of terrorist acts. On the contrary, radicalized children are almost all being educated... in the schools of the Republic (without necessarily being very assiduous, it goes without saying). Never mind: the President has spoken, the deputies voted as they were told, and the Conseil d'État obligingly modified its jurisprudence and endorsed all the new restrictions.

Today in France, teaching your children is no longer a freedom, it's no longer even a right, but a derogation that parents can request every year, for every child, from the French Education Ministry, which has the right to accept or refuse these requests in a totally arbitrary manner. Thousands of parents home-schooling their children for reasons as diverse as they are legitimate (travelling, alternative teaching methods, harassment or school phobia of their children, etc.), who have been practicing homeschooling for years in some cases, with systematically positive controls, find themselves at this very moment compelled to send their children to school, on the grounds that public school would be best for them. There were just over 70,000 home-schooled children in 2021 in France. Since then, according to the associations involved, there have been around 10,000 fewer every year.

At the root of this political failure of a legitimate law that completely missed its target was the idea that forcing all the children of France to attend secular republican public schools was the best way to detect, prevent and combat Islamist radicalization. However, the case of this 12-year-old boy, not to mention the English teacher at the Lycée public de l'Hyrôme who was attacked with a knife by one of her pupils on May 27, or Dominique Bernard and Samuel Paty who were killed (etc.), all highlight the inability of public schools to prevent the phenomenon of Islamist radicalization.

In fact, the problem is precisely the wrong way round. Preventing radicalization and delinquency depends first and foremost on the family, and particularly on the father. His authoritative role is crucial for children, and his role has constantly been deconstructed over the last decades. This 12 year old case illustrates this once again: his parents are separated and he lives with his mother.

In 2023, terrible riots occurred, following the death of Nahel Merzouk, a young speeding delinquent who refused to stop his stolen car for a police check. At the time, the President and the Minister of Justice suddenly remembered the role of parents in the education of children and called on them to help stop the rioters. Too late: the French have now largely accepted the idea that it's up to schools to do everything: educate, instruct, socialize and so on.

On this question of the role of parents, the French law is out of touch with reality. All parents who enroll their children in private schools, whether under contract or not with the State, or who practice home schooling, do so, sometimes out of necessity, but overwhelmingly because they are dissatisfied with public schools. The list of problems in public schools is long and well known: lower academic standards, increased violence, dubious teaching methods, questionable ideological teachings... So, homeschooling or enrolling your children in a private school is absolutely not a sign of republican separatism, but a sign of parents’ investment in ensuring that their children receive the best possible education, or the one best suited to their needs. While not all parents who care about their children’s education necessarily take them out of French public schools, all those who do not care enroll their children in public schools. Because, practically and cynically, it’s the cheapest way to avoid having to look after them.

Another major point that everyone refused to see when the law was passed was that home schooling is not in line with Islamic doctrine. Contrary to our European and Christian tradition of preceptorship, of an education practiced in the nuclear family unit and of an education reserved for those who could afford a tutor, Islam is above all a communitarian religion, the religion of the “ummah,” where the community as such is valued and where the individual well-being of the child is not the fundamental axiom.

Let's face it: radical imams in France don't preach to the faithful Muslim to "retreat" or "protect" themselves from the Republic and its principles, but to Islamize it, to challenge republican principles and values within republican institutions themselves... This is what's at work and the national education system’s pursuit of a pas de vagues-policy, i.e. “paper over the cracks policy,” is only reinforcing the phenomenon.

What’s the point of radical Muslims setting up private schools or homeschooling to teach their principles if they're already sufficiently determined and numerous in many French public schools to prevent the Republic from teaching its own?

Emmanuel Macron and his Government have taken a hammer to strike down “Montessori families.” Meanwhile, French public schools are collapsing on all fronts.