That was three months ago, or “maybe two”. Sarah * no longer has very clear memories, so much the experience she lived “shocked” her. As part of the three annual sex education sessions, provided by law since 2001, the 14-year-old schoolgirl learned that she had to “be modest, so as not to be the object of the gaze of boys”. “The teacher said that it was the message of our body, when at puberty hair begins to cover our genitals,” she says. Marie *, another schoolgirl, abounds: “For her, the boys had impulses of life, and it was necessary to adapt to them. As everyone is afraid of being fired, no one dared to contradict her.”
The two students study at Stanislas, ranked best college and high school in France by Le Figaro in 2022. Before them, General de Gaulle, Prince Albert of Monaco, Martin Bouygues, Carlos Ghosn, François Baroin or Jean-Michel Blanquer also worked alongside this private establishment which aims to be a school of excellence, of obedience Catholic and conservative. Inès de Franclieu, the teacher to whom the schoolgirls refer, perfectly embodies this ideology. This “specialist in emotional and sexual education”, founder in 2011 of the association Com ‘je t’aime, intervenes every year in the prestigious establishment. In 2016, she wrote Say, in truth, what is love?, a book for 5-12 year olds, in which the content of his lessons appears explicitly. “The life drives, the sexual drives, are particularly strong in the boy, and they are beautiful”; “Sometimes the way the girl dresses does not respect her privacy enough. She does not realize that the boy will have more difficulty controlling his gaze”, can we read. Further, the “specialist” is more direct: “You, young girl in the bottom of your heart, you do not wish to be considered as an object. […] So make sure you don’t provoke the boy’s gaze. The way you dress will help or not the boy to control his gaze, and therefore also his gestures.
These words, Inès de Franclieu assumes them to L’Express: “The girls complain that we talk to them about modesty, but they are also the first to say that they are being raped today. It is therefore necessary that they learn that we don’t work the same.” Regarding clothing, the educator takes the example of prostitutes, “dressed a certain way”. “We know that the naked body does something to the man, otherwise there is a problem,” she explains.
Does Stanislas endorse this speech? Frédéric Gautier, the director of the college since 2015, claims not to know all the content of these courses: “They are done in connection with the association of parents of students, and are presented to parents before the intervention in class. elsewhere, they come under our educational freedom, recognized by the Debré law of 1959.“Because of its status as a private establishment under contract, Stanislas has its own “character”, that is to say that it can refer to a philosophical doctrine in its educational project. Catholicism In the context of a catechism course that L’Express consulted, this allows the teacher to write, for example, that “abortion always means intentionally killing an innocent human person”. “In the case of rape, it is important to differentiate between two aspects. On the one hand, there is this terrible brutal crime committed against a woman […]. On the other hand, there is this child, loved by God, who was conceived. Regardless of his parent, God has a plan with this child. As terrible as the wounds that have been inflicted on the mother are, the child can become a source of consolation for her and bring her new hope.” A message that Frédéric Gautier assumes: “I do not evacuate the idea that this discourse may offend our students. But we must transmit the Church’s teaching on respect for life from its conception to the end.”
However, the educational freedom of Stanislas, which benefits from public subsidies like all private establishments under contract, is not total. The law provides that compulsory education, of which sexuality education is a part, be provided “according to the rules and programs of public education”. For Théo Clerc, lawyer in public law, Inès de Franclieu does not respect this framework: “Even if there is no official program for these sessions, the law indicates that they must present “an egalitarian vision of the relations between women and men”. This is not the case here.” This observation, Inès de Franclieu refutes it: “Obviously the man and the woman are equal, but their bodies are not similar. The excitement does not have the same repercussion on the boy as on the girl.” Contacted, neither the Ministry of Education nor the rector of the Paris Academy responded to our requests.
The girl-boy relationship, the internal regulations of the establishment also regulates them. “We expect our students to wear outfits that demonstrate the dignity of their femininity,” it reads. Stanislas is also “attentive to the training of men and women and to their emotional construction following their own path”, to the point that “any behavior of” small couple “between students” is prohibited, is it expressly specified.
Mary knows these rules well. The last time she spoke to her “boy friends”, the prefect – the equivalent of the principal educational adviser – came to see her to ask her name and surname. “I felt that my attitude challenged him,” she testifies. Last year, her friend was also “forced” to leave her boyfriend, “under penalty of being expelled”. A former student of Stanislas from kindergarten to prep, Benoît had a similar experience: “The prefects searched the cell phones to find out if we were talking to girls. A guy was fired for a week for having kissed one.” Frédéric Gautier disputes: “We have never prevented boys and girls from talking to each other.” However, the director assumes that he does not tolerate “students who grope each other at recess”, Stanislas not being “a leisure club”. And to add: “Our requirements of clothing, mutual respect and restraint concern both girls and boys.”
“Natural contraception works very well”
Who says absence of couple also says absence of contraception. Cécile, a former student from 2011 to 2013, remembers the speech of Inès de Franclieu according to which “condoms are useless” and “natural contraception works very well”. This idea also appears at the end of his book, under the question “Do you have to put on a condom to not have a baby?” Inès de Franclieu replies: “No, it is not necessary to put on a condom […]. The man and the woman can decide to express their love by a sexual union during the non-fertile periods of the woman, and this union will not give life.” The pill is never mentioned, and sexually transmitted diseases are associated with “a particular use of sexuality, where there are multiple partners”.
Asked about this point, Inès de Franclieu persists: “I am not talking about the pill because many women do not want to swallow it, and the students do not need me to know what a condom is. I maintain that it is quite possible to learn the periods of one’s cycle, but this within the framework of a stable couple.” In the course, no alternative to natural contraception methods is therefore discussed. According to the Ministry of Healththese however know up to 25% of failures, against 15% for the condom and 9% for the pill.
In the infirmary, contraception is not a discussed subject either. “Nurses are prohibited from providing condoms and pills because premarital sex is wrong,” said a staff member. Samuel knows something about it. A former nurse from 2008 to 2013, he was summoned one day by the director at the time, Daniel Chapellier, for having distributed condoms to adult students. “He told me in a very authoritative way that sex education was not the medical field but the spiritual, and then instructed me to report to him in the future any students who would make such requests.” This breach of “professional secrecy”, provided for by the Public Health Code, convinced Samuel to leave. Contacted, Daniel Chapellier did not respond to our requests. The current director, he has no knowledge of this case, but finds it “normal” not to give a minor pupil contraceptives “without the authorization of the parents”. And when is it issued? “I’m not sure this has happened before,” he retorts, while also ensuring that he does not have to know “the questions of the students addressed to the infirmary”. A sign of greater openness? Sarah doubts it: “Anyway, nobody talks about it. Here, sexuality is taboo.”
*Names have been changed.