Will French children and adolescents have to buy supplies from the Elysée store to go to class?
Obviously, no.
But, while he was questioned this Monday morning on the emergence of the movement "# monday14septembre", carried by college girls and high school girls eager to wear what they want, Jean-Michel Blanquer used on RTL a formula for the least surprising: he called on them to "dress in a Republican way".
"The school is not a place like the others", developed the Minister of National Education.
“You don't go to school like you go to the beach or to a nightclub […] Everyone can understand that we come to school dressed in a Republican fashion,” he said.
A vocabulary that immediately provoked taunts on social networks.
“We come to school dressed in a Republican fashion”, it seems.
Good Monday !
“Thus amused the singer Jeanne Cherhal.
“We come to school dressed in a Republican fashion”, it seems.
Good Monday !
😄🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/yCUGIxCtX9
- Jeanne Cherhal (@JeanneCherhal) September 21, 2020
"Want to send my kids to school in cockade thongs now" this Internet user still quips.
Want to send my kids to school in cockade thongs now https://t.co/CPPGgzvGht
- unemployed go on (@LiciousKarma) September 21, 2020
"Are socks in thongs republican?"
Thank you to Jean-Michel Blanquer for allowing unprecedented reformulations of our debates of ideas which were too frozen ”still laughs, this former accustomed to ministerial cabinets.
The students I had to refuse in class this morning.
pic.twitter.com/xAhqUDB1Oq
- Aurélien (@ aurelienb93) September 21, 2020
The myth of the uniform
So what did Jean-Michel Blanquer mean?
He just wanted to promote "a simple outfit," his firm tells us.
"
Republican way
does not imply that it is the clothes which are Republicans, but the School which is republican", we insist.
"It is therefore a question of having an outfit adapted to the place where you are, in this case a public place, which you share with everyone, where living together and respect for others apply, and not a private, family, intimate place ”underlines the press service.
And who is to judge if the dress is adequate?
"The School is a place of study, learning, and school heads and school directors have all our confidence to ensure that it is respected on a case-by-case basis" conclude the ministry's services.
Clearly, Jean-Michel Blanquer does not advocate a return to uniform in the public.
Because if you type “republican clothing” in Google, except for a link to the official store of the UPR, the political movement of François Asselineau, it is indeed the uniform which returns.
"The only way in which the Republic has been able to take an interest in clothing is school uniform" confirms Chloé Demey, co-author of the book "History of fashions and clothing: from the Middle Ages to today ...".
And again, the uniform, which in the imagination refers to a kind of golden age of National Education, is a myth: compulsory under the Consulate, in high schools in 1802 then schools from 1803, as recalled by the site specializing in fashion "Les petits mains" - which also details the frock coats imposed at the time, it did not cease over the following two centuries to become the prerogative of the private sector.
"The uniform in the public is a tenacious legend", specified some time ago the historian of Education Claude Lelièvre, in Ouest-France.
The toga of Julius Caesar
Today, only private or military schools can impose a compulsory uniform.
In public establishments, the question of school dress is governed by a single law: the law of March 15, 2004, which rules on the prohibition of ostentatious signs of religious affiliation.
In addition, a ministerial circular dating from 2011 also mentions the wearing of "suitable clothing" for secondary schools.
In this context, any school principal can thus ask a pupil to remove a garment bearing racist inscriptions or calling for violence, and if necessary exclude it until he complies with the imperatives of "respect of public order ”.
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In this context, what does the Minister mean when he speaks of “correct” attire?
“The appropriate dress in our Western societies, is historically a garment that must go unnoticed.
It is the garment of the happy medium, the “fashionable neutral” of the “50s” explains Denis Bruna, chief curator of the fashion department of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.
But the child is quite free to wear what he wants… in the school of the Republic.