Doctor in history, Guylain Chevrier is a member of the secularism mission of the High Council for Integration (2010-2013), trainer in social work and lecturer at the university.
A year ago, a SVT teacher saw her life change dramatically after she included a photo of the singer Soprano in a chronological fresco on the evolution of Man. A student's father saw racism in it and launched a controversy on Facebook, leading to threats against the teacher, a real "digital fatwa" according to the prosecutor in charge of the case. She had to be exfiltrated urgently from her establishment, a college in Trappes, and even from the Yvelines department. The school institution says it immediately informed the police, paid the teacher's legal costs, and that she was granted functional protection. Following a complaint from the teacher, the offending parent was sentenced to six months in prison and thousands ofeuros in damages. An appeal of this decision is pending. A case that echoes the beginnings of the terrorist assassination of Samuel Paty on October 16, 2020, in the same department.
Read also“He was just doing his job”: at Saint-Exupéry college, students pay tribute to Samuel Paty
"I did not see any warning signs during or after the course, and I have been using this medium to illustrate this teaching for several years now at the request of a former student who wanted to see more illustrations of people from diversity
," says the teacher.
This underlines very well the climate which dominates in a certain number of schools where self-censorship is daily for many teachers, and the “no wave” denounced during the assassination of Samuel Paty is still very present.
Let us recall that, according to an Ifop poll for the Jean-Jaurès foundation and the weekly Charlie Hebdo, only three months after the beheading of Professor Samuel Paty, nearly one in two teachers (49%) said they already being self-censored in his teachings around religious issues to avoid possible incidents in class. A notable increase of 13 points in the space of only three years, dates from a previous survey by Ifop for the National Committee for Secular Action. Regarding incidents related to challenging the principle of secularism, 40% of teachers said they had been concerned, taking the example of questions relating to school catering, up 5 points since 2018. With a 20-point difference between schools located in the network ofpriority education (REP) and others.
[Didier Lemaire] threatened with death, with the fear in his stomach of being the next “Samuel Paty” was forced to resign to fully play his role as whistleblower.
Guylain Chevrier
We remember the case of Didier Lemaire, a modest philosophy teacher in Trappes for 20 years (a city that saw the departure of a number of the most important candidates for jihad), who told the story of the pressure he felt in the face of the ambient Islamism, its damage to the students, with a certain resignation in the face of this on the part of the institutions. Threatened with death, with the fear in his stomach of being the next "Samuel Paty", he was forced to resign to fully play his role as a whistleblower. One of his colleagues, on condition of anonymity, explained:
“There are students who are well in their high school, but there may be pressure (…) I have never received explicit or implicit threats from 'somewhere else. But there are a lot ofstudents who do not want religion to be criticized.
Read alsoDidier Lemaire, a hussar in search of the lost Republic
To return to the source of the controversy, the teacher testifies that she was allegedly reproached for having put in her chronological timeline on the evolution of Man, a black man, the singer Soprano, next to a chimpanzee , whereas it is precisely the object of the course to distinguish the man from the monkey, even to say their "cousin", to designate the thing as "racist".
However, she explains that
"according to scientific theory, man is placed among the great apes"
, with a common ancestor, moreover. She simply wanted to present "Homo sapiens" in the guise of a black man, in this case a personality appreciated by young people, to interest them more in the course, thus reflecting the remark of a student asking him that it takes more account of “diversity”. She would have taken the image of a white man, so no problem. We can see how things twist, to question the spring of this almost permanent racism trial against our society.
But isn't this famous "diversity" claimed as the pinnacle of "human rights" an illusion, when we know that behind community logics individuals and their rights disappear, favoring the interest of the group, according to the discretionary will of religious or clan leaders?
Guylain Chevrier
The teacher thought she was doing well, but her approach is unfortunately part of a logic of quotas, which is flourishing, from political representation to business. It is the reflection of the influence of a model, Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism, to which a large fringe of the media and political elites is acquired. But isn't this famous "diversity" claimed behind this, as the pinnacle of "human rights", an illusion, when we know that behind community logic individuals and their rights disappear, in favor of the interest of the group, according to the discretionary will of religious or clan leaders? Isn't the most precious good rather that of the right to "singularity", the autonomy of the person, his free choice, his freedom of conscience, of thought? NOT'is it not the citizen having sovereignty and the free choice of his representatives, the general interest? Achievements in the face of history conquered with great struggle and protected by our Republic! Is it not this message which should above all be hammered home, instead of a right to difference which penetrates even into the school and fragments the social body, which is flattered by a teaching of the "religious fact" supposed to favor the famous "living together", to turn against the institution?school and fragments the social body, flattered by a teaching of "religious fact" supposed to promote the famous "living together" there, to turn against the institution?school and fragments the social body, flattered by a teaching of "religious fact" supposed to promote the famous "living together" there, to turn against the institution?
We could see behind this rejection, that of the theory of evolution itself, a course that sometimes poses a problem in the eyes of students and/or very religious parents. We can see there the attachment to the biblical legend of genesis, according to which the first man, Adam, occupies a supreme place as a work of God, created in his likeness, which can be an unacknowledged reason for this rejection, by the evangelists for example. But also, the reflection of this observation made in the survey of the Montaigne Institute "A French Islam is possible", according to which nearly 30% of Muslims in our country consider Sharia to be superior to common law, and therefore oppose to reason their religious vision of the world. There is also another reality, that of a cultural relativism which considers the theory ofevolution as one explanation among others, Western, white, ethnocentric, justifying considering that assigning a black to it would simply be racist. A dangerous drift carried by the identity movements of decolonialism and wokism, passing off whole sections of scientific knowledge for an ideology.
If we are above all equals, we can therefore fraternize, mingle... Do we still have to say all this loud and clear, without giving anything up, to get out of this school always targeted, which puts the Republic in danger? .
Guylain Chevrier
This refers to the training of students, whether it is the responsibility of courses in SVT, philosophy or civic education. It would undoubtedly be necessary to teach before this course on evolution, in order to put the common house back in the middle of the village, the notion of "natural human rights" which inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, inscribed at the top of our Constitution: these rights that each individual is supposed to possess because of his membership of the "human family", rights of universal scope, emancipators. And above all, in the order of these rights, "equality" regardless of color, origin, religion, as the foundation of "freedom", which constitutes this common good above our differences. And if we are above all equals, we can therefore fraternize, mingle...Do we still have to affirm all this loud and clear, without giving anything away, to get out of this school always targeted, which puts the Republic in danger.
