How Islamophobia is taught to future teachers

For two days, an excerpt from a partial passed in M1 MEEF at INSPE in Toulouse has been circulating on social networks. From the first question, the students are put in a situation: “ At the end of one of your lessons, a student comes to question you (…). There is something that he doesn’t understand and that he finds unfair: one of his friends was excluded from the establishment because she refused to take off her headscarf. “Why aren’t we free to dress however we want?” he asks you. Based on the principles and values ​​of the Republic and on legal references, what can you answer him? »

The subject is obviously sensitive, and it seems legitimate that future teachers be trained and prepared to face it. If the wearing of visible and distinctive religious symbols is indeed prohibited within the primary or secondary schools of the Republic, in which INSPE students are intended to teach, reactions are strong on the networks: “Islamophobia of State,” denounces Mathieu Rigouste, sociologist and author of a whistleblower tweet.

Formerly IUFM (the University Teacher Training Institutes which disappeared in 2013, which had already replaced the primary normal schools), the INSPE delivers at the end of a two-year course professional master’s degrees “Teaching Professions, ‘Education and Training’. These establishments – there is one per academy – are placed under the dual supervision of the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. It is their responsibility to train future primary and secondary school teachers, as well as principal education advisors (CPE).

As the controversy surrounding the Toulouse partial began, Blast was the direct recipient of another alert this week. This time it concerns INSPE Paris and a course delivered in its lecture halls, located in the premises on Boulevard des Batignolles and Rue Molitor. Among others, dedicated for example to the functioning of the school, digital technology, gender equality, the principles and issues of inclusive schooling, families, authority or even student development, a module is devoted to secularism and religious facts. It is within the framework of this course that strange precepts are taught. They distinguish between religions, establishing a hierarchy which places Catholicism at the top of the scale and Islam at the bottom… A totally arbitrary classification that nothing justifies. And we are particularly shocked by the terms used.

The disputed extracts are found in a sub-section of the course whose title gives the measure: “ Neutrality in religious matters does not mean equal treatment between religions », we announce at the entrance. According to this text, it is first stated, the “ neutrality which defines secularism » should therefore not be translated by a “tidentical treatment between religions ” … Devil. But by what means is this inequality of treatment justified? By a desire for political efficiency: “ Once the political objectives and ideals of life in society have been established, it appears that certain religions hinder political action more or less or threaten the social body more than others. », specifies the text. As such, since we are launched, “ if some religions are more dangerous than others, there is no reason for the state to stick to some sort of equal treatment “. But what danger are we talking about? The point is clarified in the last paragraph: “ If the objective is the preservation of a traditional art of living and the maintenance of a certain conception of male-female relationships, Islam, which is a non-traditional religion on French soil, will have to be fought (sic) more than Catholicism “.

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