Since early February, France’s prime minister François Bayrou has been the subject of a damning series of articles by the investigative outlet Mediapart detailing allegations that he turned a blind eye to decades of allegations of physical violence, sexual abuse, and rape at Notre-Dame de Bétharram, a private Catholic school. It is located just outside of Pau, where Bayrou is mayor, and where he’s built his political career for the past forty-five years.
The Mediapart revelations come less than a year after a parliamentary report revealed just how little control the state is exercising over the thousands of private Catholic schools it funds. According to the parliamentary report, most schools have their contracts tacitly renewed each year without any real confirmation that they’re fulfilling the conditions required to receive state financing. The report found that the government inspects the 7,500 private schools it funds at a rate of five per year — the equivalent of just once every 1,500 years.
The thousands of Catholic schools who get their funding from the state ostensibly commit to following a curriculum that meets public-education standards, guaranteeing equal access to education for all students irrespective of background, and ensuring freedom of conscience for students and staff. In return, they get about half of their funding from the central government but no funding from local municipalities.
These private schools are known as being “under contract.” According to 2022 figures, two million French children were educated in them, some 17 percent of the country’s students. Of these, 96 percent go to Catholic schools. Secular, Jewish, Protestant, and Muslim schools under contract account for less than 80,000 students.
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Auteur: Marlon Ettinger
