The School War

"My aim is to organize humanity without a God and without a king," cried Premier Jules Ferry, and in 1880 the Third Republic began passing the laws out of which France's public schools were born. It was an old passion with anticlerical Frenchmen, who could not forget the clergy flocking to support King Louis XVIII (1814-24) and the Bourbon restoration. The government ordered a new curriculum that was stripped of all religious overtones.

Even when the old bitterness subsided after World War I, France's traditional anticlericalism--a strain that runs from Voltaire to Sartre--remained just below the surface. In 1945, when De Gaulle set up his postwar government, he, though himself a devout Catholic communicant, curtly withdrew the wartime subsidies that Vichy had set aside for Church-run schools. But still, one in five French children attended the church schools, though the buildings were often in miserable shape, and learning, except for the top Jesuit schools, suffered from ill-paid and inferior teaching. The question of state aid to Catholic schools has passionately dogged every French government since, including De Gaulle's Fifth Republic. Last week, when the government finally sent to the National Assembly a draft bill offering conditional aid to parochial schools, the guerre scolaire--and not the guerre Algerienne--once again became the most emotional issue in France.

No Butter, No Milk. In such predominantly Catholic regions as Normandy, Brittany and La Vendee, children who attend public schools and their parents are occasionally denied the sacraments. In one Vendee town the cure himself told his congregation: "You have a good laique teacher, but even if she were a saint, you should not send your children to her." The teacher soon found that children would turn from her in the street, and that farmers refused to sell her butter and milk. In cities the tables are often turned: a child returning from confession finds himself taunted in the streets.

Though De Gaulle has long looked with sympathy at the financial plight of the parochial schools, it was not until last October that his government finally decided that the time might be settled enough to consider a formula for aid. But the big question still remained: How much control would the church schools have to accept in return? The cardinals and bishops of France signed a statement pleading with the government not to touch the autonomy of the parochial schools, and even the Freemasons broke precedent by plunging into the controversy. But of all the arguments that flew over France, few were more prolonged than the one in the Cabinet itself.

No Neutralization. From the start, Education Minister Andre Boulloche, a convinced laique, has been at odds with Premier Debre. Boulloche insisted that his ministry have almost complete control over any school that accepted state aid, refused even to tolerate crucifixes and robes. Enraged, Culture Minister Andre Malraux turned on Boulloche, snapped: "Neutralization in teaching does not exist." At one point, De Gaulle firmly reminded his quarreling ministers, "We are no longer under the Fourth Republic," warned them that an impasse in the Cabinet could sweep it out of office. To Boulloche he said, "I understand your conscience but think also of the Fifth Republic and the regime." Finally, fearing that Boulloche's resignation might lose De Gaulle the support of the left on which he depends for his Algerian negotiations, De Gaulle told Debre to accept Boulloche's amendments and sent the draft bill along to the Assembly.

In it was a provision stipulating state control of any school accepting state support, another requiring such schools to open their doors to all pupils, no matter what their "origin, belief or opinion." The church was stunned. At week's end, quailing at the prospect of a debate packed with so much emotion, Deputies on both sides began calling on De Gaulle for his personal arbitration. But the general, having seen his Cabinet dangerously split for the first time, chose silence.

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