When Maxence received his invitation to the July 14 parade in Paris in mid-June, he couldn’t believe his eyes. A letterhead of the French Republic: “A real madness”, says this 17-year-old teenager from Amiens, looking up from his mobile phone. The atmosphere is joyful, he has just won his professional baccalaureate, with honors, and tells, a thousand words a minute, how he convinced his parents to shake up the calendar of family vacations to reach the capital on National Day. . “They quickly said yes, stuck that I found myself in one of the official stands next to that of Emmanuel Macron and the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, the guest of honor. » The two nations are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of their strategic partnership, Maxence knows it. In recent months, India is no longer an unknown land for him. He even went there in April with his class.
All this “Madness” would not have existed without a teacher: Louis Teyssedou, 41, history teacher at the Edouard-Gand vocational school in Amiens. His students in the “Childhood and Elderly Activities” sector will later work either in summer camps or in retirement homes. Maxence, he wants to become a sports educator. And the learning of history in all this? “History is life, history is close at hand when you learn to look around you”, defends the pedagogue, inclined to think outside the box.
During the 2022-2023 school year, Louis Teyssedou decided to launch his senior years in the footsteps of Indian soldiers who came to fight in the north of France in 14-18. By studying this largely unknown episode of the Great War, the thirteen high school students went from discovery to discovery. First photos, then letters. Their investigation even led them to New Delhi.
“This work breaks down the commonplaces that would make history the prerogative of an elite. Thanks to Louis Teyssedou, a hussar of the Republic, these high school students have become formidable transmitters of memory », enthuses Patricia Miralles, Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs. Its services support and subsidize each year more than 800 projects related to education on defense and national security. The cardboards sent for July 14 to the professor of Amiens, to Maxence and to six other young people who participated in the Indian task force, it is on his initiative.
A trip to New Delhi
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