A report from the General Inspectorate of National Education targets the Stanislas school, a private Catholic educational establishment where the children of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra are educated. Homophobia, sexism… The document is damning.
Tuesday January 16, 2024, the newspaper Médiapart decided to publish in full a report from the General Inspectorate of National Education, dated July 2023, regarding an administrative investigation targeting the private Catholic educational establishment Stanislas, school in which the Minister of Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, admitted having enrolled her children. This 30-page document was submitted to the Ministry of Education “on August 1” indicates Médiapart.
The inspection mission heard or met no less than 106 people to carry out this investigation. From the diocesan director of Catholic education in Paris, to the staff and students of Stanislas, including prefects, librarians and even four first and second degree inspectors from the Paris academy responsible for monitoring Stanislas college. A report which castigates the establishment which welcomes 3,500 students from nursery to preparatory classes.
At Stanislas, all students must follow a weekly hour of catechism, from kindergarten to preparatory classes, whether they are Catholic or not, under penalty of exclusion. Which represents a first deviation in the application of the association contract with the State. According to the law, religious classes and exercises remain optional in the private sector under contract. However, the Stanislas college-high school requires “adherence to the “Christian formation” component of the educational project upon registration”. The inspection mission notes that the Christian formation courses are “presented by the management and supervision of Stanislas as a cultural contribution to the training of the student”.
Classes during which speakers make homophobic, anti-abortion remarks and “promote conversion therapy”, which falls under the penal code. Some catechists ask to “forgive rapists”. “Abortion means (…) always voluntarily killing an innocent human person” we can read. Children who are not baptized are promised that they will be “damned” and will go “to hell.” It is a “tendency to proselytize” according to some parents interviewed. A report was also made to the inspection mission for homophobic comments made by a catechist. In January 2023, he would have spoken of “sodomy which brings AIDS, of homosexuality which is a sin, which is an illness which comes from the fact that mom cheated on dad”. A witness also indicates that “if you felt homosexual, you had to seek treatment in a religious structure in Canada.”
Inspectors found that only one teacher at the establishment complies with official programs by covering contraception in 4th and 3rd grade classes. The content of lessons related to sexuality is only partially provided on the school’s digital platform. Certain emotional education courses, which replace sex education courses, are provided. This is a “bias of distancing sexuality” for the mission. Some SVT teachers also do not address the issues inherent to sexually transmitted infections, denounce the inspectors. As is the absence of emergency contraception in the establishment.
Stanislas’s “violent” pedagogy is also denounced in the report. “Their goal is for students to give the best of themselves, not by encouraging them, but by belittling them,” explains an inspector. A student in preparatory class in 2020 and 2021 speaks in particular of repeated reflections on her clothing.
The mission also believes that Stanislas’ management maintains sexist stereotypes. “The mission notes over twenty years a concern with the appearance of the female body, which must be hidden: opaque clothing, shoulders (covered), stomach (tops over the bottom of the hips), thighs (length of skirts and dresses) , chest (no cleavage). This level of detail is sexism.” Finally, the place of boys and the culture of non-mixing advocated in Stanislas could “promote a climate conducive to homophobia” according to the inspectors. At the high school, the capacity of the boys’ boarding school is 130 beds, only 26 beds are dedicated to girls. The proportion is 473 to 98 in preparatory classes. One member of staff interviewed even recognizes that homophobia was “openly embraced” at the time of the Manif pour tous.