Is Puy du Fou a suitable place to celebrate civic engagement?
In June, the famous Vendée amusement park was to welcome 4,000 students for the Citizenship Passport ceremony, a course encouraging CM1 and CM2 to engage in the life of the city throughout the year.
A choice that the departmental delegates of National Education (DDEN) of Vendée "
denounce
" in an open letter, recently relayed by Ouest France.
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Puy du Fou "
does not advocate republican values
" and disseminates "
a partisan representation of History and the Republic
", argue the DDEN, relaying the reservations expressed by some public schools.
And to propose, in their open letter of March 25 addressed to the prefect, to the mayors and to the management of the departmental services of National Education, "
a symbolic place of the Republic better suited: the prefecture, the departmental council, a place of emblematic memory, or more ambitiously, the National Assembly, the Senate…
”.
Tensions between schools and town halls
The signatories point to tensions between "
a small number of reluctant schools
" and the town halls.
"
In one town, a mayor wrote to parents after the director expressed reservations about the arrival of students
," explains Rémy Éveillé, coordinator of the DDEN in the center and Littoral district of Sables-d'Olonne.
The financing of transport for the Puy du Fou being taken care of by the town halls, they would take a dim view of the absence of the pupils.
"
I do not question the Civic Passport,
nuance the DDEN
, it is the Puy du Fou that poses a problem for us
".
Since the publication of this letter, the controversy so far confined to "
a small number of schools
“, Won the department, nevertheless regrets Rémy Éveillé: “
Our role is to make the link, but this controversy divides …
”
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For his part, Maxence de Rugy, LR mayor of Talmont Saint Hilaire at the initiative of the Citizenship Passport, regrets “
a false controversy
”, on what is, in his eyes, a “
great patriotic gathering around the values of citizenship for reward young people
.
The city councilor explains that only two places could accommodate so many people, “
the Vendespace, which had no date available and the Puy du Fou, which accepted
”.
For him, the Puy du Fou is quite suitable, since it "
celebrates the whole history of France, from Clovis to Clemenceau
" and welcomes "
150,000 schoolchildren every year
".
“
We have planned to sing a great Marseillaise
“, he underlines.
Of the 4,000 Vendée students who participated in the project, 3,000 should be present on June 26 to receive their Passport.
Read alsoVendée War: these inconvenient truths
“
The choice of whether or not to participate in this demonstration on June 26 is up to each school
, reacted Catherine Côme, academic director of the national education services,
I have no opinion to give on the choice of the chosen site. by the Association.
When contacted, the management of Puy du Fou stresses that the amusement park
"embraces the entire history of France, from the Hundred Years War to the Battle of Verdun, from the year one thousand to the Belle Époque"
and recalls, for example, that his "
new show,
Le Mime et l'Étoile,
is a nostalgic hymn to early 20th century France, which was then Republican
".
