A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #336 - When the far-right dreams of becoming a school - Interview with Grégory Chambat (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Teacher within a UPE2A system (reception unit for students newly arrived 
in France), trade unionist, educational and anti-fascist activist, 
author of several books on the school question (1), Grégory Chambat 
answers some questions about his latest book: When the far-right dreams 
of becoming a school (Libertalia, 2023). ---- In the historical part of 
your book, you show how the school of the Republic was constructed as an 
opponent of emancipation. It almost seems that the ideas embodied by the 
far right today come from Republicans?
Nostalgia for the school of Jules Ferry is part of a reactionary 
imagination but which is not always perceived as such. Indeed, if the 
school of the Republic is opposed to the hegemony of the Church in 
matters of education, it presents itself just as much as a bulwark 
against the worker threat. Ten years after the Paris Commune, Ferry's 
project is to "end the era of revolutions", by establishing a school for 
the people - and not of the people - without calling into question 
either hierarchies or social inequalities.
Two conceptions of the republican school will then oppose each other: 
one which considers the system to be complete, the other which intends 
to continue its transformation in an egalitarian and emancipatory 
perspective, such as Ferdinand Buisson. Throughout its history, the 
right of the right has mobilized not so much against the institution 
itself as against those who intended to transform it from within (trade 
unionists, educators, sociologists, critical historians, etc.).
The reactionary discourse has thus - and also - profoundly shaped the 
institution. "Equal opportunities" is a notion first put forward by 
Pétain: "The new regime," he declares, "will be a social hierarchy. It 
will no longer be based on the false idea of the natural equality of 
men, but on the necessary idea of equal opportunities given to all 
French people to prove their ability to serve[...]We cannot make the 
struggle disappear. classes, fatal to the nation, only by eliminating 
the causes which formed these classes and set them against each other.»

Internationally, in Turkey, Hungary, Brazil..., when the far right comes 
to power, what happens in schools?

The educational question is at the heart of his program but also of his 
strategy of conquest of power. Once in charge, she strives to bring the 
youth and staff into line. This is the "gag law" in Brazil or the 
"ethics" charter in Hungary. There is a desire to eradicate all dissent 
(virtually banning the right to strike in Hungary, wave of political 
dismissals in Turkey or Brazil), and to regulate educational programs 
and practices. Textbooks are rewritten from a nationalist perspective 
and imposed by the state; books deemed "subversive" are banned. 
Bolsonaro also founded 203 "militarized" schools where uniformed 
security guards maintain "order." Critical knowledge, the teaching of 
gender issues, anti-racism and, more generally, the analysis of 
discrimination are prohibited. Brazil's powerful "school without party" 
movement, a reactionary lobby that ensured Bolsonaro's victory, has been 
renamed by its opponents "the one-party school."
But there is also another dimension, which we find in France in RN town 
halls, it is the fight against the poor. In the name of the fight 
against "welfare" and in order to "empower" families, these town halls 
have taken a series of anti-social measures: end of free school 
transport, canteen or after-school services for the most deprived 
families, reduction in school budgets, reduction in staff numbers and 
freezing of staff salaries (the Atsem), as well as a standoff with the 
trade union organizations.

You do not mention in your book education under historical fascist 
regimes (Germany, Italy, Spain), apart from Vichy France. Yet there, the 
far right has really set a precedent...

Certainly. But, on the one hand, my objective was to offer a short and 
synthetic work (130 pages) from an activist perspective. We therefore 
had to make choices. On the other hand, I did not want to give too much 
space to the historical approach which would reduce the argument against 
the extreme right to the sole reference to the past. If I emphasize the 
Vichy regime, it is because it is today explicitly claimed by part of 
the extreme right.
Concerning Nazi Germany, I mentioned in a previous work how the 
educational model (qualified as "black pedagogy") which developed at the 
end of the 19th century in Germany participated in the anchoring of an 
authoritarian logic and obedience among the future cadres of the NSDAP. 
There would also be a genealogy to be made on this side, I am thinking 
of the work of Grégoire Chapoutot in Libres d'obéir. As soon as it was 
installed in power, the regime quickly put an end to the latest 
educational experiments resulting from the revolutionary movements of 
the 1920s, such as the Master Comrades of Hamburg, and it regimented the 
children within the Hitler Youth.

Marshal Pétain in a school
In Italy, there is this same alignment but with a specificity which is 
the attempt to make Montessori pedagogy the official pedagogy of 
fascism. Out of opportunism, probably more than out of conviction, Maria 
Montessori will seal an alliance with the new regime. She took her card 
from the fascist party while Mussolini was named honorary president of 
the Montessorian movement until the - late - rupture in 1936. On this 
subject, I refer to From Montessori to neurosciences, a new version of 
which is planned for the spring 2024.

Today in France, the terms of the debate on school are largely those of 
the far right. How did we get here?

In 2017, after her defeat in the second round of the presidential 
elections, Marine Le Pen found comfort in Blanquer's policies, which she 
hailed "as an ideological and even political victory for the ideas of 
the FN". In fact, the far right has managed to impose its agenda.
For around forty years, it is its vocabulary (egalitarianism, 
pedagogism, laxity), and its solutions (uniform at school, end of single 
middle school, return to traditional and authoritarian methods, etc.) 
which have imposed themselves. This extreme right-wing of the debate is 
a very interesting case study. Not only does it illustrate the way in 
which the cultural battle consists of enclosing the debate within a 
defined framework and forcing the adversary to position himself only 
within this framework in order, ultimately, to rally his positions as 
being the only "reasonable" ones. But it is also the consequence of the 
abandonment by a large part of the "left" of the ambitions of social 
transformation: the socialist project has been replaced by a 
"republican" horizon...

You cite examples of Le Pen's program for schools: guidance from 5th 
grade, end of priority education and single secondary school, 
inculcation of patriotic feelings... not to mention the stigmatization 
of immigrants and their descendants. This is precisely what Macron is 
doing. So, is there still a difference between neoliberalism and 
nationalism (the convergences of which you rightly point out) on the 
question of school?

The measures announced by Gabriel Attal last December were immediately 
presented by Roger Chudeau, in charge of educational issues at the RN, 
as being "exactly those of Marine Le Pen's educational program.» SNU, 
uniform, social sorting, etc., we cannot deny that since the Blanquer 
era, there has been a rallying, by political calculation, but also, 
partly by ideological conviction. Even if there are still a few slight 
differences, we can predict that these small dikes will quickly 
transform into locks...
This can only surprise us if we forget that neo-liberalism is originally 
an authoritarian doctrine, unlike original liberalism. It is a response 
to the structural crisis of capitalism of 1929 and is built against a 
"socializing" democracy, as evidenced by the debate Lippmann vs. Dewey 
(also an educational thinker). The controversy resurfaced after the war, 
again pitting Dewey against Anna Arendt, and again on the school 
question. The text The School Crisis, an essential reference in the 
reactionary-publican galaxy, is first and foremost an attack on Dewey's 
self-government. The thesis of Arendt and her disciples is that all 
education is necessarily conservative, must be based solely on the 
vertical transmission of knowledge and consider that school is 
incompatible with democratic functioning, when Dewey on the contrary 
considers school as a place learning in action of democracy.
In Chile, the United Kingdom or the United States, neoliberalism only 
comes to power through an alliance with what has been called the 
conservative revolution and only remains in control by promoting a 
brutal and authoritarian nationalism, of which education is one of the 
pillars.

In the current transformation of the school, what do you think relates 
to the cultural and political victory of the far right, and the need to 
adapt the school to serve French capitalism of the 21st century, that 
would any fraction of the bourgeoisie do?

The far right does not question the economic model. It presents itself 
as a solution, within the system, which aims at both the support of the 
masses, by playing on the logic of scapegoats and the rallying of a 
fraction of the bourgeoisie that it intends to seduce and reassure. . In 
the 1970s in the United States, for example, it was necessary to respond 
to worker insubordination which worried the employers. In France, the 
legacy of May 68, presented as being at the origin of the decadence of 
the education system, functions as a matrix of the reactionary-publican 
discourse on school.
But capital is not monolithic, neither in its needs nor in its projects. 
However, on the school question, I do not think that the nationalist 
educational program scares the ruling class. Let's put ourselves in the 
shoes of a boss (just for demonstration!). What does he dream of in 
terms of education? Of bringing youth into line, in order to make them 
docile, obedient and workable, of a "class that behaves "behaved"" and 
of "neutralized" teaching, legitimizing hierarchies and reduced to only 
the fundamentals because , as Adolphe Thier already said "reading, 
writing, counting, that's what you need to learn, as for the rest, that 
is superfluous. Above all, we must be careful not to approach social 
doctrines at school, which must be imposed on the masses.»
In the book I discuss the fascination of the far right with the colonial 
educational model, which today inspires initiatives such as the network 
of non-contract Espérance suburban schools. It was a question of 
maintaining the colonized in domination while freeing a small 
intermediate elite which in turn participated in the mechanisms of 
oppression. We have here, I think, a model which can appeal to both 
nationalists and employers.
Add to this the reduction of costs, the hunt for trade unionists and all 
those who speak critically, the establishment of an educational market 
(as in Sweden with the education voucher), early guidance, etc. So many 
measures that the far right intends to introduce, even better than 
Macronism does.

You mention the abandonment of a radical critique of the capitalist 
school (social selection, authoritarianism, brainwashing) by the social 
movement as a whole. And for you, reappropriating this idea is a 
necessary condition for pushing back the extreme right at school. For what?

Declaring the ideological victory of the far right on the school 
question is indeed a way of noting the defeat of the social movement, on 
this subject as on many others. However, educational and educational 
issues are at the heart of the history of the workers' movement, during 
the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and especially during the Paris 
Commune. The AIT program, which promotes integral education of 
libertarian inspiration, affirms that the education of the proletarians 
will be the work of the proletarians themselves. The establishment of 
the Ferry school does not silence the critics, on the contrary. 
Revolutionary syndicalism has a radically critical position; Albert 
Thierry, for example, advocates the refusal to succeed. Among the 
teachers, a minority but active fringe joined the workers' movement and 
affirmed, in their Manifesto of 1905, that "it is among the workers' 
unions that we will become aware of the intellectual and moral needs of 
the people. It is through their contact and with their collaboration 
that we will establish our programs and our methods." They denounce, to 
use Célestin Freinet's words, "the school, daughter and servant of 
capitalism". Defending the school as it functions today means 
recognizing its function of social sorting, it also means cutting 
oneself off from dominated classes.
So we can wait for the big evening and the general strike, but as 
Pelloutier said, what the workers lack is "the knowledge of their 
misfortune" and it is appropriate to "educate in order to revolt". If 
school, on its own, will not change society, it can nevertheless 
participate, in a subversive way, in the training of those who will 
change the world. The social and trade union movement must 
re-appropriate the educational question and popular education.

Unfortunately, current struggles are clearly not taking this path... 
What do you think should be done?

Persist, all the same! School remains a field of struggle, deserting it 
will not help things move forward. History is never written in advance. 
Who would have imagined massive teacher strikes in the United States, 
the United Kingdom or, today, in Quebec? If these movements concern the 
wage question, they also experiment with new forms of struggle and 
self-organization. This is certainly the path we must follow. But these 
movements must raise the question of the role and purposes of school in 
a capitalist environment. These movements, just like our daily practices 
as teachers, must not be drops of oil in the cog of the system but 
grains of sand in order to stop the machine of sorting, prioritizing, 
dominating and discriminating. This is where part of the anti-fascist 
and anti-capitalist struggle is also being played out.

Comments collected by zyg

(1) Pedagogy and revolution, Libertalia, 2011 then 2015
The school of barricades, Libertalia, 2014
The school of reaction-publicans, 2016
Learning to disobey (with Laurence Biberfeld), Libertalia, 2013 then 2021

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4042
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