Petition addressed to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in support of the request submitted by the ECLJ and other French associations against the new program on emotional and relational life and sexuality education.
By ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), France has committed itself to respecting the freedom of parents to give their children an education in accordance with their moral and religious convictions, as provided for in Article 13:
3. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.
However, since September 2025, the French Ministry of Education is requiring all public and private schools, from kindergarten to high school, to implement a program of ”education in emotional and relational life and sexuality" (éducation à la vie affective et relationnelle et à la sexualité -EVARS).
The imposition of this program on all French educational institutions and all children—without the possibility of any exemption—is unacceptable, because education on emotional and relational life and sexuality is a private matter and therefore up to parents, not schools.
This mandatory and evaluated program does not present “knowledge” in an “objective, critical, and pluralistic” manner on biology, sexuality, anatomy, or health. It provides highly biased and partial content, such as gender theory, which is scientifically false. It forces children to talk about their intimate and private lives.
It is a program that aims to shape children's beliefs on moral issues. It encourages all forms of sexuality with no limits other than consent, in fundamental contradiction to the beliefs that many parents wish to pass on to their children. In particular, parents who enroll their children in private religious schools, mostly Catholic, have religious and moral convictions that are fundamentally opposed to the content of this sexuality education program.
Parents want and must be able to provide their children with emotional and sexual education in accordance with their religious and moral convictions, without being disavowed and opposed by the National Education System.
The State must respect the religious and philosophical convictions of parents and cease to infringe upon their rights, as the EVARS program does.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights must remind France that:
- Article 13 of the Covenant prohibits States from imposing a sexuality education program on all children against the will of their parents;
- Parents are the primary educators and not simply “members of the educational community”;
- France must assist parents in their educational mission and not replace them or contravene their educational plans.
