PARIS (Reuters) – Far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour, candidate for the April presidential election in France, presented his educational program on Monday, promising a school under the sign of excellence and authority, where the children will wear the blouse and will no longer be “brainwashed” by “ideologues”.
During his greetings to the press, the former journalist hammered home his favorite themes, starting with nostalgia for the school of yesteryear with, in addition to wearing the blouse in primary school, the reinstatement of the certificate of studies at the end of the cycle or the possibility of learning “really” Latin and Greek.
“The blouse is the symbol of social equality, there is no longer any difference between children,” he explained to justify his recovery.
“It is also the symbol that the school should be a sanctuary from the outside. We have sinned with this concept of a school open to the four winds.”
By this formula, Eric Zemmour aims in particular “the entryism of minorities” and the “intolerable propaganda” of LGBT, anti-racist and anti-colonial ideologies at school, and according to him particularly in French and history lessons.
“For 40 years, we have used school to indoctrinate children,” said the polemicist, taking up a theme that is dear to him.
To encourage teachers to “defend the school against ideologies” and to “transmit knowledge”, he intends to “multiply bonuses and accelerate the progression of merit-based careers”.
Anxious to restore the authority which is according to him seriously lacking in the schools, the candidate promises to suspend the family allowances of the parents of disturbing pupils or absentees, or to create “boarding schools of reintegration” for the pupils posing serious problems of behavior.
If he intends to promote the teaching of Latin and Greek, he wishes on the other hand to suppress the teaching of a foreign language from primary school to give pride of place to French and arithmetic.
At the higher level, he promises “the abolition of the single college and the reestablishment of level classes”, assuring that this “will allow the weak to progress and the strong to be even stronger”.
(Report Elizabeth Pineau, written by Tangi Salaün, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)