Breaking the Republican mold: French independent schools and agonistic pluralism amidst Franco-conformity *

French Republican apologetics

The high school students focused on the teacher in the front of the classroom as we all took our seats. “There is no questioning of Republican values in France—they are sacred, untouchable.” The class discussion today, we were told, would be about the French Revolution as well as laïcité and other Republican values. But the content was not what one might expect from the hyper-secularized, centralized, Republican citizen-making model par excellence exemplified in French schools. The teacher began by distributing handouts entitled “God proven in the heart of Man.” Page two of the handout discussed the hypothesis of laïcité as a religion: “This neutrality [of laïcité] is a myth…there is today, in France, a religion of the State that has replaced the Catholic religion, and which imposes upon all citizens, beginning in elementary school, dogmas, myths, symbols, rites, and a very particular morality.” This was no ordinary French high school, and this was not a history class. I was sitting in a course entitled “Apologetics” at St Paul ¹ Catholic school – one of France's 2400+ hors contrat (without contract), or independent schools ² , about 200 of which are Catholic. ³

There has always been a stark irony in the existence of independent schools since their default beginnings upon the establishment of sous contrat (under contract), or state-funded private schools with the Debré Law ⁴ of 1959. The modern French school system, constructed in the early years of the Third Republic (1870–1940), was established upon an acculturating, assimilationist, and secular ideology of making “French people French” (Weber, 1976: 303) by “build[ing] national unity over the diversity of regional cultures and social conditions” (Keaton, 2006: 101 quoting Guilhaume, 1980: 78). Thus, most scholarship on the French education system aptly highlights the system's French Republican “mold”—its hyper-centralized, Franco-conformity, and secular “Republican sanctuary” characteristics (Bowen, 2008, 2010; Keaton, 2006; Mazawi, 2010; Poucet, 2002; Weber, 1976). ⁵ Contrary to this portrait, however, independent schools in France are given a relatively free rein in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, admittance criteria, and the incorporation of religion, paving the way for schools like St Paul and scores of other Republican mold-breaking schools.

During the 2019–2020 school year, I spent 7 months performing ethnographic fieldwork, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation, within eight independent schools in France ranging widely in orientation and location, in addition to conversations with actors from several other schools. ⁶ This research revealed a deep plurality of ideologies, cultures, and pedagogical methods and goals, as well as persistent, multifaceted critiques and contestations of certain elements of the French Republican mold. I suggest that independent schooling represents a space for flexibility and plasticity within an otherwise seemingly monolithic, centralized, and secularized French education system, collectively illustrating an ironic form of pluralism under the umbrella of French Republicanism. Since the French education system is seen as a “republican sanctuary” and as the epitome of the French Republican project, this plurality on the fringes is not just a reflection of social reactions to education-related Franco-conformity but can be seen as an alternative interpretation—or interpretations—of what Frenchness, French plurality, and the limits of French pluralism can or should be. Thus, while this small schooling system is not necessarily impacting mainstream education, independent schooling is prompting disproportionately fierce and fervent political, media, and public debate, which I interpret as being more so about French identity, plurality, and pluralism in France than just about education. ⁷

In this article, I first contextualize the French education system within and against theories of agonistic pluralism, before then highlighting the recent growth of independent schooling and its place within the twenty-first-century French school system. My case studies follow—including a Traditionalist Catholic school, a Muslim school, and a school from the Marchons ⁸ network of schools—illustrating some of the ways that these schools break from the French Republican mold, maintain their particular ideologies, culture, or pedagogies—some of which are especially exclusionary or anti-Republican—and yet, contribute to a form of agonistic pluralism on the periphery of French education. Lastly, I use these examples of independent schooling as a lens for examining the possibilities and limits of pluralism under French Republicanism. I conclude with an analysis of how recent independent schooling reforms disrupt this story of potential pluralism in the Republic.

Pluralism, agonism, and the Republican “mold”

Political Theorist Chantal Mouffe (1999) has posited agonistic pluralism as an alternative understanding of the forces and purpose of democracy. As Political Scientist Mathew Jones suggests, agonistic pluralism allows for the “…continued defense of the value of democracy, while simultaneously attempting to broaden the scope of the actors able to participate” (Jones 2014: 28). The model explicitly recognizes the power dynamics that create hegemonic ideologies within democracies, which can exclude certain groups of citizens, and thus, necessitates the open contestation of those dominant ideologies by internal adversaries. An agonistic approach works to transform internal “others” from enemies who must be eliminated, into adversaries with whom we may disagree, but who have an incontestable right to defend their perspectives (Mouffe, 1999: 755). Mouffe suggests that pluralist democracy's “survival depends on collective identities forming around clearly differentiated positions, as well as on the possibility of choosing between real alternatives” (Mouffe, 1999: 756). As such, Mouffe's model focuses on the inclusion of otherwise socio-politically marginalized voices, grounded in the understanding that there are limitations to agreements upon rational limits of social relations and legitimate ideas. Thus, agonism acknowledges and insists upon the centrality and persistence of conflict within democracies and democratic processes (Mouffe, 1999).

Mouffe's work seeks to expose the limits of liberalism and reinterpret the aim of democracy as “creat[ing] the conditions for a conflictual consensus” (Hansen and Sonnichsen, 2014: 266). This pushes back against Habermasian theories of “deliberative democracy,” Rawlsian theories of “overlapping consensus,” and other liberal political theory traditions that emphasize a unified consensus (Habermas, 2015; Rawls, 1987). Mouffe insists only upon the agreement to basic underlying ethico-political principles of democracy, namely equality and liberty, in the agonistic model (Mouffe, 1999: 755; more on this later). Also, in distinction to Rawls, and complicating secular democratic ideologies, Mouffe sees human passions and beliefs as integral parts of agonistic politics, suggesting that democratic governments should not seek “to eliminate passions or to relegate them to the private sphere in order to establish a rational consensus in the public sphere” (Mouffe, 2006: 324). Rather, they should seek, “to attempt to mobilize those passions towards democratic designs” (Mouffe, 2006: 324).

Those familiar with French Republicanism and the politics surrounding French secularism, or laïcité, will immediately recognize the contrast with the agonistic approach to dealing with difference. French Republicanism is perhaps most strongly known for its attempts to eliminate or relegate passions, beliefs, and particular identities to the private sphere (Ferrara, 2023). Political Theorist Cecile Laborde notes that in distinction to liberalism, Republicanism advocates a “strong public identity transcending private preferences and identities…social solidarity, and cultural assimilation” with a citizenship model directly linked to a centralized nation-state (Laborde, 2008: 4). Indeed, French Republicanism is hardly known for its celebration of diversity or promotion of pluralism. A strong political preference for some degree of ethical and cultural conformity harks back to the Jacobin roots of the 1789 French Revolution. Jacobin doctrine “emphasized a highly centralized state and rejected both institutional and ethnocultural pluralism,” which were seen as interfering with democracy and left the door open to “reactionary particularisms” that hindered the “construction of a rational society with universalist application” (Safran, 2003: 438). Thus, by the mid-nineteenth century, and especially under the Third Republic (1880–1940), “diversity became imperfection, injustice, failure, something to be noted and to be remedied” (Weber, 1976: 9).

French Republicanism, thus, is grounded in an assimilationist citizenship model in which citizens are required to abstract themselves from their differences to participate fully in a neutral, secular public sphere (Scott, 2005; Silverman, 2007). The French Republican model of difference abstraction is often contrasted with the Anglo-Saxon model of multiculturalism. The latter is seen in the French context as inviting dangerous communautarisme, or the fractioning of society into separate groups with interests divergent from the mainstream (Modood and Kastoryano, 2007; Wieviorka, 2005; for communautarisme see Bowen, 2008 Chapter 7; Hervieu-Léger, 2001). Similarly, French secularism is often interpreted as freedom from religion, in contrast to, for example, the United States’ secularism as freedom of religion, the latter prioritizing protection of religious practice and the former prioritizing protection of citizens and institutions from religious influence or proselytization (Bhargava, 2012).

This ambition to eradicate, or at least privatize difference in favor of abstracted secular citizen-making, was a primary mission of the “the mold” of the modern French education system. The Jules Ferry Laws of the 1880s worked to universalize the Republican school model across the nation, formally establishing and declaring public schools obligatory, free of cost, and fully secular for all children aged between 6 and 13 years. An 1871 survey of religious statistics showed that 98% of the population declared themselves Catholic, yet, by the mid-1880s the public school had nonetheless become “a school without God,” meaning that religion was extracted from the curriculum, allowed only to be discussed within the context of geography and history (Ognier, 2008: 45, 174 quoting Émile Devinat). This was, and remains, an anomaly in Western Europe (Béraud and Willaime, 2009). ⁹ The secular French school as a “Republican sanctuary,” with an emphasis on Franco-conformity and a demand for the privatization of “human passions and beliefs” has meant a persistent resistance to pluralism—agonistic or otherwise—within French education.

Thus, it is unexpected to come across a flourishing of collective identities, passions, and beliefs being transmitted within the scope of French education, even if on its margins. Indeed, the world of French independent schooling has been described as a “veritable kaleidoscope” of motivations and raisons d’etre (Poucet, 2020: 103), with numerous contested and clashing ideologies therein. How could these “mold-breaking” and potentially communautariste schools even come into existence?

The Debré Law and the emergence of independent schools

The path for independent schools was created by default—an unintended consequence of the Debré Law of 1959, which established the system of sous contrat, state-funded private schools. The law offered state funding to eligible private schools in exchange for teaching the standardized national curriculum and greater regulation and oversight by the French state. The Debré Law was a compromise between secular French Republicanism and the weakened, but still omnipresent Catholic Church. Within a few years, most private schools—nearly all Catholic at the time—had become state-funded (Poucet, 2019). Nonetheless, not everyone was compelled to educate under the thumb of the state.

The Debré Law was already a surprising caveat to French secularism in providing public funding to private religious schools. However, far more ironic—especially against the backdrop of the centralizing, common culture-building effort that the Debré Law represented—the law, by default, created the existence of hors contrat, or independent schools; schools with “‘truly’ free instruction” (l’enseignement “vraiment” libre; Perrin, 2020). ¹⁰

A twenty-first century independent schooling awakening

Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, independent schools operated largely under the radar, with state education energies focused on improving the public school system (Poucet, 2002). However, the early twenty-first-century establishment of Créer son école (Create your school; 2004) and the Fondation pour l’école (Foundation for School; 2008) catalyzed independent school growth and drew greater political attention to the schools. These organizations, both established by the same passionate Catholic actors, ¹¹ work to protect freedom of education (l’enseignement libre), along with parental freedom of school choice, innovative pedagogies, and educational diversity (pluralisme scolaire) to improve student success and learning for French youth. Under President Nicholas Sarkozy's leadership beginning in 2007, there was a political push toward the establishment of private schools. The Fondation pour l’école was created in 2008 and labeled a “public utility” by ministerial decree by then Interior Minister François Fillon, a staunchly Catholic politician, in order to improve government oversight of independent schooling and boost the creation of new private schools. ¹² The Fondation provides financial assistance to approximately 200 existing school projects each year. Thus, somewhat ironically, given the schools’ “mold-breaking” characteristics and the recent political pushback against independent schooling just two decades later, these early years of growth came with strong governmental support.

From 2010 to 2021, the number of independent schools increased by 110% (BFM Business, September 2, 2021), and there were more than 2480 schools in operation during the 2022–2023 school year ( Écoles-libres.fr, 2022 ). Since all private schools must wait at least 5 years after opening before applying for state funding, these numbers include schools that will remain independent, those still in the waiting period for state funding, and those whose directors have applied for, but have been denied funding thus far. ¹³ About half of independent schools are primary schools ( Écoles-libres.fr, 2022 ). About 78% of existing independent schools are non-confessional or secular. Many of these secular schools employ alternative pedagogies, such as Montessori (25% of all independent schools), Steiner -Waldorf, Freinet, or a mix while some offer a particular kind of curriculum or school environment. The remaining schools are confessional: about 12% Catholic, 3% Muslim, 3% Jewish, and 2.5% Protestant ( Écoles-libres.fr, 2022 ). Despite the relatively small percentage of French students who are educated in independent schools (∼1%), the exponential growth of independent schooling in the early decades of the twenty-first century alongside the rise of Muslim schooling has meant that the mediatization, politicization, and visibility of these schools far exceed their educational footprint. This is especially evident in the overwhelming political and legal attention that the schools have drawn from 2017 to 2022 as discussed later in the article.

Nearly all Muslim schools in France are independent given their relative recency paired with the 5-year waiting period for state funding, as well as the stagnation of state funding contracts granted in recent years. The first private Muslim schools in France opened in 2001, and when I first began research on Muslim schooling in 2009, there were still only a handful of schools. The founding of Fondation pour l’école in 2008 coincided with the first Muslim school being granted state funding, Lycée Averroès in Lille, representing a major impetus for the exponential growth of Muslim schools in the ensuing years. Today, approximately 130 Muslim schools are operational and 6 are partially or fully state-funded. ¹⁴ Despite parallel curricula and pedagogies, Muslim schools have yet to be accepted as a part of the French education landscape (Bourget, 2019; Bowen, 2010; Ferrara, 2017, 2022; Girin, 2019; Hanafi et al., 2021). While Muslim schools only represent a small portion of the independent schools that open each year, this parallel growth has played a notable role in raising concerns over independent schooling given the mediatization, securitization, and sensationalism surrounding Muslims and Islam in France (Bowen 2008; Cesari 2012, 2017; Hajjat and Mohammed 2013).

Various ways of breaking the mold

Given the free rein of independent schools in France, it is not surprising that they break the French Republican mold in many different ways. French education scholar Bruno Poucet (2020) suggests that all independent schools resist state control, but he distinguishes between two types of “refusal” of the traditional French education system: ideological refusal and pedagogical refusal. He clarifies that these “refusals” can be overlapping and are not always easily categorized (Poucet, 2020: 96, 103). Poucet suggests that ideologically opposing schools tend to be religiously oriented and traditional in nature—all three monotheistic faiths included. He suggests that the existence of these schools “rests upon the fear of deleterious influences of the contemporary world” (Poucet, 2020: 96). Furthermore, he posits that these school communities are culturally “entre-soi” or isolationist and “assume an explicit adherence to a religious belief [system], which they strive to transmit” (Poucet, 2020: 98).

My research suggests that, while there are examples that fit this categorical description, such as St Paul, there is not always a mentality of “refusal” or even resistance among founders or educators, nor is there necessarily a strong ideological stance among actors from all schools with “religious” labels (see further Ferrara, 2022). This is especially the case among more newly established schools whose founders aspire to receive state funding, as with many Muslim schools. Furthermore, there may be a strong cultural foundation rather than a particularly oppositional ideology that gives shape to certain schools—again this is common among Muslim schools, like Al Hiqma ¹⁵ profiled below. Importantly, independent schooling actors are not necessarily consciously seeking to disrupt or influence mainstream schooling but believe firmly in educational freedom—in being allowed to seek viable alternative educational paths for their students and communities, even if those paths ideologically or pedagogically break from the Republican mold.

Poucet suggests that pedagogically resistant schools can tend toward either more traditional or more “progressive” pedagogies than those found in the public system (Poucet, 2020: 99). While I did not find all such actors to espouse necessarily “resistant” attitudes toward the French education system, their methods of instruction, curriculum, and/or pedagogies did diverge from mainstream French education in one way or another. Thus, I would suggest these schools are more so pedagogically “divergent.” Divergence from the mold varies significantly among these independent schools. For example, there is a network of democratic schools, with no standard classrooms or curriculum, wherein students vote on their educational trajectories as a democratic unit. There are the pricey, elite American and British schools wherein the international baccalaureate is offered. There are similarly pricey Montessori primary schools in the wealthy arrondissements and suburbs of major cities. There are the Marchons schools, discussed later, which combine mixed alternative pedagogical methods with a strong nationalist patriotism. There are also pedagogically innovative Muslim Montessori schools, several of which had been established or were in development as of 2020.

Many of the pedagogically divergent school actors I spoke with placed an emphasis on the individuality of students, as well as on their paths and measures of success. The curriculum is often more individualized, meaning that students who struggle to fit into the mainstream education system “mold” may feel more supported in independent schools. This is attractive to families seeking a greater challenge for their high-achieving children or more attention for children with special needs or behavioral challenges. ¹⁶ These schools are rarely religiously oriented, though they may be as in the case of the Muslim Montessori schools, while others incorporate some degree of spirituality or latent Christianity. Homeschooling is another attractive option for families seeking a more personal educational approach. While outside of the scope of this ethnographic research, recent statistics from the National Ministry of Education suggest that 71,700 or 0.5% of French students are home-schooled, though recent legislation has sought to curb homeschooling accessibility.

The most notable aspect of independent schooling is the deep pluralism it represents on the fringes of the otherwise highly centralized, diversity-resistant French education system that is reflective of French identity norms and ideals. From a French Republican perspective, independent schools represent the potential for nefarious communautarisme within the most sacred of Republican spaces—the school—thus attracting concern and attention in this moment of growth. As we’ll see in the following examples, independent schools represent an agonistic plurality of religious, cultural, and pedagogical perspectives which, intentionally or unintentionally, contest French Republican norms.

Habits from Frances past: An independent Catholic schooling experience

St Paul is nestled in the woods behind groves of towering trees and abandoned sheep paddocks along a winding country road. On my way, I passed a procession of monks from the seminary's Catholic Order ¹⁷ on an afternoon stroll, engrossed in deep conversation with their peers as they waved to me amicably. A nun pedaled by on a bike, her black habit billowing in the wind. I was met by the director, Father Martin, ¹⁸ who led me inside, asking me to please excuse the “mess”, joking that since it was all men and boys, it wasn’t always tidy. This community, along with most Traditionalist Catholic orders, restricts gender mixity beginning in elementary school (Poucet, 2020: 97). Classes for the middle and high school's approximately 100 male-only full-time boarding students took place in a twelfth-century former convent, adjacent to the Order's chapel and monasterial quarters. The setting is fitting, as its Catholic character is grounded in Traditionalist Catholicism, denoting an ideology based upon the liturgy, rites, rituals, and interpretation of the Church's mission and sacred texts as they stood before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and a deep nostalgia for the monarchical era predating the 1789 French Revolution (Cuneo, 1999; Sudlow, 2017).

The curriculum is a mix of standard school subjects—biology, math, philosophy, and French—alongside apologetics, catechism, and other faith-based subjects, allowing students to prepare for their national exams while respecting the faith's ideologies. History courses placed more emphasis on the salience and supremacy of Catholicism throughout French history. The philosophy course I observed interwove Descartes, Plato, Bergson, St Thomas Aquinas, and divine will. Certain concepts, such as evolutionary theory and laïcité, are taught but are discussed as falsehoods when inconsistent with Traditionalist Catholic ideology, as seen in the opening vignette with laïcité. Every class—whether catechism or math—started with a prayer directed at the cross hung at the back of each classroom.

In line with Traditionalist Catholic ideology, Father Martin was resistant to interfaith work. He was in favor of dialogue, “so long as [it] really seeks the truth…[but] if the dialogue consists solely of saying that everyone is nice and everything is beautiful, it's useless. This is what ecumenicalism is today.” For everyone to sit at the table and discuss why each faith is good and/or equal is a moot point for those espousing a single absolute truth. “Things that are contradictory cannot exist together. Either it's true or it's false. Take, for example, the condition of women in Islam or the condition of women in Christianity. It's incompatible.” For Father Martin, clashing truths should seek resolve, not coexistence—nor should Islam and Catholicism coexist in France as he subtly implied in this example and elsewhere. There was an ironic overlap between his description and Jacobin Republican ideology in its insistence on assimilation into a dominant truth, rather than allowing for clashing perspectives to co-exist.

I asked what role he thought his school played in his grander vision of the future. “What we can do is to truly build fervent minorities. It's not the masses that govern.” He gave the example of the Bolshevik revolution, wherein a small minority overthrew a powerful regime. “We can see this today. Laïcisme, ¹⁹ from which we suffer, and all these politics that completely overwrite all the Christian roots of France, it's only a minority. Here, now, there is a general abandonment…and [from this we have] Macron. While this lasts, however long it lasts, I think we have to react. What we don’t want is to allow the spread of a politic of doing nothing and allowing things to get worse.” He posited that this explained the recent increase in independent schooling—because people are starting to react, to stand up. “The time comes when you have to know how to say no. If we allow ourselves to go along with [everything], we’ll all finish completely lobotomized.”

St Paul is one of the scores of other independent Catholic schools in France. Although there have been marked waves of growth in independent Catholic schooling in 2004–2005 and in 2013 after the same-sex marriage and gender education debates (Hoffner, 2016 quoting French sociologist Sara Teinturier), numbers have remained relatively stable overall. Nearly all the 200 or so independent Catholic schools are run by a Traditionalist Catholic order. About sixty of these are affiliated with the Fraternity of the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX)—a conservative Catholic branch that split from the Vatican in the 1970s in opposition to the modernizing reforms of Vatican II (Hoffner, 2016; for more on FSSPX see Frölich, 2002; Michel, 2009; Sudlow, 2017). Although St Paul is not officially affiliated, FSSPX catechism manuals were used in the courses, and the tenets and religious orientation of the school aligned closely with FSSPX discourse. Other independent Catholic schools are run by orders such as the Fraternity of St Peter, the Institute of Christ the King ²⁰ , and the Institute of the Good Shepherd (Sudlow, 2017: 80). The actors in these communities represent a range of conservative stances, only a few of which are officially estranged from the Vatican like FSSPX, but all of which are in tension with the Catholic Church of France, as well as representing ideological resistance to French Republicanism.

Al Hiqma—a flourishing independent Muslim school

I arrived at Al Hiqma in February 2020 to find a bustling school full of nearly 300 elementary and middle school students. After years of planning, the school opened with just a few dozen elementary school children in 2015. The school's rapid growth speaks to the high demand for such schools within France's Muslim communities—here within France's Turkish Muslim communities. The school is affiliated with the French branch of the Turkish-based Milli Görüs Islamic Confederation, a pan-European Islamic organization for the Turkish diaspora across Europe. ²¹ In line with statistics indicating that more than three-quarters of France's Muslims are of North African heritage (Laurence and Vaïsse, 2006), most of the Muslim schools I have visited are attended and run by Muslims of Algerian, Moroccan, and/or Tunisian descent. French–Turkish communities often create their own parallel infrastructures, though not necessarily out of exclusion on either side. Community leaders simply tend to build infrastructure to meet demand from their own communities—often initially organized around the local mosque community.

Al Hiqma's school director, Ishak ²² , told me that in 2019, they received approximately 600 applications for 80 open seats. Thus, the enrollment process is strict, and their students are academically strong overall compared to other local schools. Most of the local public schools in the area are “priority education zone” (ZEP) schools, a common designation in particularly economically impoverished areas. These schools are offered additional subsidies to help combat low retention and to foster greater teacher continuity and safe and enriching learning environments but often remain plagued by a variety of challenges (Van Zanten, 2009). This makes private schools, regardless of creed, an attractive option for those families who can afford them. Students come from across the metropolitan region to attend the school, and as is the case with other well-established Muslim schools, some families relocate from across the country for their children to attend.

The school is supported solely through community donations and tuition fees (approximately 2000–2300 euros/year). Unlike many other independent schools, Al Hiqma operates only with salaried employees, and without regular volunteers. Despite this seemingly tenuous financing scheme, the school is well managed and financially stable, therefore, Ishak told me, they have little incentive to seek state funding. Keeping the school independent offers more pedagogical and curricular freedom and allows them to better respond to community demands for a structured religious education.

The CP class (first grade) that I visited had 23 students—a smaller class size than in most public schools. The classroom was decorated with typical colorful and friendly elementary school décor, with both French and Arabic letters for learning the alphabet, but very few signs of Turkish. Ishak told me that Al Hiqma provides approximately eight hours of supplemental religiously oriented education per week, including Arabic language and Quran studies for all, and religious sciences (from the Hanafi and Maliki schools of Islamic thought) starting in middle school, incorporating lessons on how to pray, the life of the prophet, as well as tolerance and comprehension of other religions.

Aside from its large size, Al Hiqma is representative of many of the independent French Muslim schools in which I’ve spent time. Judging by the books on the shelves, the curriculum, the primary language of the classrooms, and the pencil cases on the desks, the school is clearly French. However, the atmosphere, environment, and dress at the school exude a particular Muslim culture, heritage, and pride. These kinds of schools, I suggest, are more so culturally divergent than ideologically divergent—schools that challenge the assumptions and norms embodied in the French Republican mold primarily by way of cultural expression, and sometimes secondarily through religious ideology. Culturally divergent schools transmit cultural values, norms, dress, or language that diverge from those represented and encouraged in the French Republican mold, even while supporting the ethico-political principles of equality and liberty, and often state secularism. In a different manner than their ideologically divergent counterparts, like St Paul, these culturally divergent schools, most of which are Muslim schools, are nonetheless emblematic of the kind of communautariste “mold-breaking” described in the “entre-soi” characteristic noted by Poucet (2020). Such schools are specifically community-based, serving almost exclusively Muslim students, even if others might be theoretically welcome.

Breaking, remaking, or radicalizing the mold?

Among the more recent “pedagogically divergent” independent schooling initiatives, is the Marchons ²³ network. Marchons was founded to provide youth from France's most economically disadvantaged suburbs with an academic alternative to struggling local ZEP public schools. Seeking to offer greater social mobility, the schools’ pedagogy includes “integrating” youth into French culture, arts, social norms, and Republican values. The project arose in response to a perceived “Islamization” of certain French suburbs and concern over the youth growing up therein. Two Marchons educators I spoke with from one school said these suburbs had become “unrecognizable.” “The Muslim communautarisme is flagrant,” one teacher told me. In order to encourage greater assimilation, Marchons especially welcomes students from such neighborhoods—primarily Muslim kids with North African heritage, with varying immigration histories, and from predominantly low-income families. However, school leaders try to ensure a cultural “balance” within the student bodies when going through applications in order to prevent further segregation and communautarisme among students.

The Marchons network began with just one school in 2012 and has grown progressively to about 800 students in more than 15 schools across France. As the schools are geared toward low-income families, tuition is only 50 euros/month and further subsidies are available for families in need. This is compared to an average cost of 200–500 euros/month at other independent and state-funded private schools. The low cost to families is offset by substantial private donations and an extensive network of volunteers. Approximately 40 individuals volunteered at one of the schools I visited, most of whom are local, retired Catholic supporters of the organization. Muslim parents sometimes volunteered, but Marcel, ²⁴ the director of one of two Marchons schools I visited, specified that it “would be complicated” to allow a hijabi woman as a volunteer, given the undergirding principles of the school.

The pedagogical focus of each Marchons school varies, depending on the needs of the local population and the purview of each school director. However, their overarching pedagogical “pillars” and certain methods are standardized by a central team and subsequently adapted to and implemented by each school's leadership. The first Marchons pillar is academic excellence, which, according to Marcel, meant offering tools for success, including daily dictation work, Singapore math methods, extra work in French and math compared to public schools, and no technology education, which they feel kids get enough of at home. Second is co-education with the family, meaning obtaining full buy-in from parents to ensure ethical and cultural coherence and continuity. To Marcel, this meant that refusing to shake hands, learn about Catholicism, or embrace “all that is beautiful” about French culture—including Christian values—by students or parents would be grounds for dismissal. This also meant an emphasis on equality between the sexes. Although in sharp contrast to public school discourse, there are some activities that are not mixed-gender, homosexuality is a “tricky” topic, and Marcel noted that he didn’t hesitate to “encourage girls to be feminine.”

The third pillar is patriotism—the love for France, the patrimoine. Each school has biweekly flag ceremonies accompanied by students singing La Marseillaise (the French national anthem). While public schools and state-funded private schools always have the French flag on display somewhere on campus, having flag ceremonies, which is common in the United States, is nearly unheard of in France, as is singing the La Marseillaise anywhere except at sporting events or other national ceremonies.

Marcel's school, like some other Marchons schools, follows a non-apologetic version of French history that frames colonialism in a more positive light than in contemporary public school curricula. As Political Scientist Emile Chabal (2015) notes in discussing certain twenty-first-century neo-Republican narratives, “…colonial guilt becomes the necessary prelude to ‘dangerous’ expressions of multiculturalism and religious pluralism” (Chabal, 2015: 202). “The problem in France is that people are ashamed of being French,” Marcel told me. So, Marchons students are taught about the values of the Republic, but also the values of the monarchy that came before it. He wants kids to “dream of a France united” so they need to be well versed in French culture and respect all that it offers them. He even said he encouraged mothers of Algerian descent to learn to cook French food. “If you go to someone's house and they offer you tea, you’re not in France, you’re in Algeria,” he said. “I’m not judging, but in my opinion, one needs to try to adapt.”

Notably, the schools were not created to shun the public school system or to intentionally “break the mold,” despite their pedagogical divergence. Rather, the independent status, according to Marcel was about being able to choose their own teachers and learning manuals, limit class sizes, and restructure the allotment of hours toward one or another subject. Another school director—at a school that had many students with special learning and behavioral needs—saw the network as a complement to public schools—especially for students who struggle to succeed within the French Republican mold, and who benefit from smaller class sizes, personalized support, greater academic and disciplinary structure, and perhaps secondarily the reinforcement of French norms and culture. Thus, more so than breaking the Republican mold, Marchons schools represent an alternative iteration of the mold, albeit with a stronger Catholic flavor, and without the constraints of the public school “political correctness,” for lack of a better term, required of the French state. Nonetheless, these schools certainly add to the portrait of agonistic pluralism within independent schooling as their values and visions of the endgame clash strongly with those in the other two schooling communities described above.

Independent schooling as agonistic—or permissive—pluralism

In Mouffe's agonistic pluralism model, the primary stipulation for adversaries participating in democratic processes is that they maintain a shared adhesion, albeit divergently interpreted, to the “ethico-political principles of democracy,” specifically equality and liberty (Mouffe 1999: 755). Political Scientist Mathew Jones (2014) points out that, on the surface, it may seem as though requiring an agreement on these ethico-political principles in Mouffe's approach does not actually diverge much from the traditional liberal emphasis on consensus. However, Jones clarifies that Mouffe is arguing for a “thin” pluralism, supported by a “thin conflictual consensus”—an agreement strictly on the rules of the game, but not on the definition of the common good or the endgame (Jones, 2014: 22).

When analyzing the above case studies within this framework, it becomes challenging to assess whether all school leaders have actually agreed to these rules of the game, such as Father Martin from St Paul. The same question can be asked of the founders of some of the independent Muslim schools that French politicians have fought hard to shut down, despite their curriculum's closer alignment with certain ethico-political French Republican principles than schools like St Paul. ²⁵ Are all the independent schooling actors who are expressing ideological, cultural, and pedagogical divergences legitimate adversaries that contribute to the conflictual health of French democracy? Anthropologist Anna Tsing notes that “…difference [can be] a model of the most culturally productive kind of collaboration…collaboration with friction at its heart…” (Tsing, 2005: 246). Collaboration here is not interpreted as consensus making, “but an opening for productive confusion” (Tsing, 2005: 247). We might, for example, consider recent debates over independent schools or perennial debates over how to deal with difference in France as “productive confusion.”

Or, by contrast, does the implicit inclusion of these clashing perspectives somehow delegitimize the democratic and/or Republican state project? Political Scientist Ugur Aytac has suggested that the free admission of any interpretation of ethico-political principles can foster an “overly permissive pluralism” that is untenable (Aytac, 2021). Using the case of science denialism, Aytac argues that, “The lack of distinction between good and bad politicization implies a form of pluralism without substantial limits” (Aytac, 2021: 418). In this view, there needs to be a clearer endorsement of a rationalist-universalist conception of politics, and there need to be rational limits set in terms of “how social relations should be politicized or what ideas should be welcomed as the legitimate part of political life” in order for pluralism to function (Aytac, 2021: 421). Otherwise, a potentially nefarious form of permissive pluralism can emerge. Here, we might pause to consider the espousing of ideologies that explicitly reject the current system of democratic governance and call instead for the reinstatement of a hierarchical religious monarchy. According to Aytac, the inclusion of such ideologies in “the game” would certainly border upon, if not cross into the territory of overly permissive pluralism. This is especially the case when intolerance toward certain groups of people is explicitly taught in a way that constitutes hate speech or calls for disruption of public order.

However, in some respects, by participating on the fringes of the French education system, these actors are agreeing to the rules of the game—to some iteration of equality and liberty, at least temporarily, and are providing a potentially productive critique of the French Republican mold, even while maintaining sometimes exclusivist ideologies. While a rational consensus is not possible here, a “thin” temporary consensus upon the rules of the game is largely upheld, even if challenged. As Father Martin explained, somewhat ironically echoing certain Salafist ²⁶ Muslim schooling actors I had spoken to on other occasions, the current system of government and social life in France are not ideal, but to work toward the endgame of establishing a more perfect reflection of God's kingdom on earth, they must work within these systems—even while challenging them. They most certainly do not agree upon a definition of the common good, and by no means agree on the same definitions of equality and liberty within French Republican ideology. However, as Jones notes, “Participation and inclusion within this [agonistic pluralism] project ought to be seen, by those actors who may be critical of the ethico-political principles of liberty and equality, as being more beneficial than nonparticipation and, ultimately, exclusion” (Jones, 2014: 28). As for spaces of nonparticipation, one can find this too in homeschooling—an important option for those preferring a full retreat from “the game.”

The independent schooling cases of ideological, cultural, and pedagogical divergence presented here illustrate the surprising pluralism that exists on the periphery of the otherwise hyper-centralized French education system and under the umbrella of French Republicanism. The “mold” of the twenty-first-century French school seeks to transmit supposedly neutral, universalist rational values, a common French culture, and in theory, respect for everyone on a “color-blind” basis and in accordance with laïcité. However, students of color, Muslim students, Jewish students, and students of North African heritage have exposed the weaknesses of the French school's ability to accommodate particular differences, and the tendency to fall back upon illiberal assimilationist methods in striving toward Franco-conformity (Arkin, 2014; Beaman, 2017; Birnbaum, 2001; Keaton, 2006; Wesselhoeft, 2017). Aside from visible and ideological differences that are not well accommodated by the mold, independent schooling is also a testament to the varieties of neurodivergence, learning divergence, or other special needs of students that struggle to find belonging, support, and/or recognition within mainstream French education. Importantly, independent schooling represents the accommodation of such particular differences and identities within the French school system, even if on its margins.

Independent schools also point to the possibilities for pluralism under French Republicanism. In his analysis of the rhetoric and narratives that have contributed to what he labels a “neo-republican revival,” Chabal (2015) argues that contemporary politics in France has been structured by the “creative interaction between a resurgent republican language and a powerful liberal critique” (Chabal, 2015: 263). Independent schools are not necessarily representative of a “liberal critique,” but they do demonstrate the plurality of voices that seek to contest certain strands of rigid Republican discourse within the neo-republican revival. While Chabal does not dismiss criticisms of neo-republicanism as “an intolerable attack on liberal pluralism or simply as a thinly veiled form of neo-colonial domination targeted at Muslims,” he does find value in digging deeper into the variety of narratives of French Republicanism that exist and the ways they have clashed to produce contemporary French politics. On the one hand, the assumption of the entire Republican model and its principles—especially secularism, as noted by Political Scientist Per Erik Nilsson—as being inherently “non-ideological…as neutral and objective, as universal” sits uncomfortably with those who find themselves excluded from its embrace (Nilsson, 2018: 5). On the other hand, Chabal suggests that political critiques from movements such as droit à la difference have ushered in a “noticeable softening of France's attitude to such issues as diversity, race, multiculturalism, difference and ethnicity” (Chabal, 2015: 197). He notes that “The dominant presence of a neo-republican discourse,” as evidenced more recently in the 2022 French elections for example, “has inevitably meant that it has faced strong opposition, but these issues are now being widely discussed” (Chabal, 2015: 197). While the “softening” of French politics toward these issues may be up for debate, especially considering the rise of the far-right just in the years since Chabal wrote this, these questions certainly are more widely discussed. Interestingly, and relevant to its role in representing agonistic pluralism, independent schooling has been an important part of this political debate.

A policy change of heart—reforming independent schooling

It is not just political theorists who may judge some aspects of independent schooling to be overly permissive. In recent years certain independent schools have been politically spotlighted as threats to national unity, exposing and enabling the practice and expression of a “dangerously” diverse, dis-unified France. Just as independent and Muslim schools started to blossom in the 2010s, concerns multiplied over what independent schools were teaching, as well as whether and how the schools presented an affront to French Republican values and French society (Beyer et al., 2016; Hoffner, 2016; Laurent, 2019; Poucet, 2020). In 2013, the education code was updated to emphasize the rights of all school-aged children “to acquire a common ground of knowledge and culture” throughout their education. ²⁷ This “common ground,” which has been a constantly evolving, but omnipresent theme throughout the history of modern French education, was defined by decree, as was its curricular incorporation throughout students’ education in all schools recognized by the French state, including independent schools. Concretely, this update had little real effect since all schools must prepare students for national exams, which are grounded in this “common core” curriculum. However, it signaled concerns about divergence within independent schools, perhaps especially cultural divergence from the state-dictated common knowledge and culture foregrounded in “the mold.”

The most significant legal changes to independent schooling came in 2018 with the Gatel Law, which made it easier to deny approval of new schools and to close existing schools judged to have “deficiencies” or to harbor “dérives” (sectarian characteristics). ²⁸ This law also increased state control with more frequent and unannounced inspections; changed mandatory schooling for children from age six to three (in part to supposedly reduce the possibility of early home-schooling radicalization); and changed the requirements for school directors as well as secondary teachers to include French nationality. While applicable to all independent school projects, the French nationality requirements, among other aspects of the law, specifically targeted Muslim schools (Rhouma, 2018).

In August of 2021, the controversial law to “reinforce Republican principles” was passed. Originally labeled as an “anti-separatism” law project and still referred to as such on the official government website, the law directly targeted political Islamic extremism (See “Loi du 24 août 2021 confortant le respect des principes de la République,” ViePublique.fr.). Despite a lack of demonstrated links between such extremism and education projects of any kind in France, the legislation included a further circumscription of independent and homeschooling freedoms. A September 2022 survey by the Coordination for Freedom of Instruction (Coordination pour la liberté d’instruction), a group created after the announcement of the anti-separatism law, showed that 68% of family requests for homeschooling were rejected for the 2022–2023 school year. The law also made it easier to close independent schools that inspectors deemed to be deviating from the “Republican pact,” vaguely defined. According to news reports, at least 20 such schools were closed within the first 2 months of the 2022–2023 school year (Bélier, 2022). ²⁹

With this law, clear connections and conflations emerged between the simultaneous twenty-first-century rise of both independent and Muslim schools and an increasing political and public fear of “deviance”—especially related to Islam—from imagined notions of Frenchness being transmitted in French schools. In an official communiqué from French Prime Minister Jean Castex regarding the law, he specified that “the bill includes a provision to ban clandestine schools that propagate the ideology of radical Islamism,” without clarifying the distinction between “clandestine schools” and independent schools (Gouvernement.fr, 9 December 2020). In a related speech by Minister of Interior Gérald Darmanin, he implicitly and erroneously conflated Islamism and homeschooling, noting that “it is a scandal not to see these little ‘phantoms’ of the Republic at [public] secular school, nor at [state-funded private schools], nor even at independent schools,” and that he intended to “save these children from the clutches of the Islamists.” ³⁰

Thus, though not necessarily more mold-breaking than other iterations of independent schooling divergences, Muslim cultural difference has proved the most alarming to education policy makers—even more so than ideological divergence that specifically rejects French Republican principles. St Paul and numerous schools with similar ideologies have been operating since the 1980s. The Marchons project has received a great deal of government support. Cultural divergence represented within the spectrum of independent schools, most notably in this moment by Muslim schools, sits most uncomfortably with the contemporary French “neo-republican consensus,” which has united a variety of perspectives on the right and left around vaguely defined notions of what can and cannot count as French (Chabal, 2015). The decision to ban headscarves from public schools in 2004 is an example of this consensus at work (Nilsson, 2018). But the targeting of political Islam and Muslim schools has ushered in real changes to the possibilities for pluralism—whether agonistic or permissive—in independent schooling.

The reforms to independent schooling between 2017 and 2021 in France represent arguably well-intentioned state projects intended to more actively attenuate domestic radical groups, specifically Islamist groups. On the one hand, these laws seemed to be beneficial to independent schooling communities. Several school directors, including those from Muslim schools, said the reforms were necessary to prevent disorganized, poor quality, and ill-intentioned schools from opening. On the other hand, while the explicit goals are protecting the public and strengthening education, the implicit goals are to further restrain difference—cultural difference especially—thus signaling restrictions on the pluralism that has found space to cultivate in independent schooling. Moreover, in implicitly deeming certain forms of cultural divergence within independent schooling as “overly permissive,” while tending to look the other way from examples of more intolerant, anti-democratic, and anti-Republican divergence, the state is tacitly tailoring and reinforcing a certain kind of Frenchness and a certain understanding of the kinds of plurality that can be deemed acceptable within its boundaries. The hyper-mediatization and politicization of independent schooling in recent years, along with these legal initiatives have made it clear to this microcosmic source of agonistic pluralism that conforming to the mold remains the path of least resistance. Efforts to bend or break the mold—whether intentionally or unintentionally—even on the margins, will be met with formidable challenges. This suggests that France is moving away from prior “softening” toward difference, as signaled by Chabal (2015), and is instead moving toward reifying and reinforcing the mold—much as the name of the law “to reinforce republican principles” implies. Just as independent schooling is not the only target of these recent reforms, so the restrictions on independent schooling are not only about education reform—they are about dealing with difference and redefining the boundaries of straying from the mold in French society.

Agonism and its limits within French Republicanism

Chabal notes that “Republicanism has always been a unifying political language, which has consistently sought to underplay difference in its efforts to promote national unity, but it has also been ecumenical in its choice of narratives” (Chabal, 2015: 10). This “ecumenicalism” has provided space for multiple interpretations of French Republicanism, as well as a plurality of perspectives on its undergirding ethico-political principles, such as equality and liberty—and laïcité. Mouffe states, “When we accept that every consensus exists as a temporary result of a provisional hegemony, as a stabilization of power and that always entails some form of exclusion, we can begin to envisage the nature of a democratic public sphere in a different way” (Mouffe, 1999: 756). Independent schooling actors and students tend to be those who feel excluded from mainstream French education or from the “mold” of French Republicanism in some way. Understanding the school system as the “temporary results of a provisional hegemony” allows us to think of the productive work that the agonistic pluralism in independent schooling may provide for reimagining ways to include otherwise excluded others in education and elsewhere in France.

In a similar spirit, Tsing reminds us, “Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick…friction reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power” (Tsing, 2005: 5). While ostensibly, French Republicanism may strive to suppress new arrangements of culture and power and resist new visions of the democratic public sphere, such possibilities for friction are accommodated in the form of independent schools. Independent schooling allows those with opposing ideologies, pedagogies, and cultures to be considered potentially legitimate adversaries within the education system. It represents “… a form of political association that draws people in and encourages participation, instead of pushing them away, hence the fundamental importance of incorporating passions and beliefs into the political fold” (Jones, 2014: 24). It is in these confrontations that solutions might be found to the challenges of the politics of difference and to “making pluralism work” in France (Barclay, 2013). Even if these schools represent a small proportion of French education, the public and political attention they wield provides a unique spotlight for considering the opportunities for pluralism in France—as well as the limitations.

Clearly, recent reforms to independent schooling and the shift from state support to state skepticism over the past decade call into question the longevity of this tolerance for agonistic pluralism, and especially for cultural difference, on the margins. As we move further into the twenty-first century wherein some scholars and politicians have signaled the “death of multiculturalism,” (Chin, 2017; Gutmann et al., 2011; Modood, 2014), policies surrounding these “deviant” independent schools may become ever more indicative. Such policies, as well as the reactions they elicit, may increasingly serve as litmus tests for the possibilities of pluralism under French Republicanism.

Democracy is in peril not only when there is insufficient consensus and allegiance to the values it embodies, but also when its agonistic dynamic is hindered by an apparent excess of consensus, which usually masks a disquieting apathy. It is also endangered by the growing marginalization of entire groups whose status as an ‘underclass’ practically puts them outside the political community (Mouffe, 2020: 6).

The future possibilities for French pluralism may depend on whether the French state can support the accommodation of plurality—even on the margins—and whether opposing perspectives continue to be viewed as legitimate opposition or end up shut out entirely from the political community of France.