Left-wing parties and trade unions have decided to wage war on Catholic schools operating under contract with the French state. In Paris, the Stanislas College, reputed to be the most prestigious Catholic school in France, is the focus of attacks and is undergoing a new offensive. Behind it, the very existence of private Catholic education is being called into question.
For more than two years, Stanislas College, a Parisian institution known for its excellent results and its traditional instruction aligned with the Catholic Church, has been under repeated attack from left-wing and far-left politicians and trade unions.
In February 2023, then-Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye launched an inspection of the school following claims in the left-wing press about the “sexist and homophobic” nature of the lessons taught at Stanislas. After several months of investigation, a report was drafted in July 2023, containing eleven concrete recommendations—most of which were complied with by the school group. Fundamentally, there is little to criticise about Stanislas, except that it is a Catholic school that intends to remain so.
But Stanislas’s enemies have not given up the fight and have gone back on the offensive, this time with a parliamentary inquiry, which claims that the report was “falsified” to protect the Catholic institution. The Paris Academy—the regional education authority responsible for overseeing all public and private education in Paris— also joined the fray with an investigation that lasted for months, involving numerous interviews with parents, pupils, and teaching and educational staff.
Of the eleven recommendations made to Stanislas in the 2023 report, the last one caught the inspectors’ attention: it concerns the teaching of Christian culture in the school. On May 28th, 2025, the academy’s inspectors therefore requested that it be made optional for the head teacher.
The prestigious secondary school is under a “contract with the state.” This means that it receives public subsidies and must comply with the educational guidelines set by the ministry of national education, but that the state must, in return, respect its “distinctive character”—in this case, its Catholic faith. The ambiguity lies in the interpretation of this “distinctive character.” At Stanislas, instruction and guidance in the sacraments—baptism, Eucharist, confirmation—is optional and left to the parents’ discretion. Christian culture, which is considered part of general education, is compulsory, which is clearly unpopular with the authorities. The new “Christian culture” course is similar to “religious instruction” and must be subject to “explicit parental consent” from the start of the school year, according to the ministry. In addition, inspectors anticipate future problems with the implementation of the new sex education programme (EVARS), which is causing concern among many parents: the ministry is already looking to Stanislas to ensure that the official doctrine is properly transmitted to children in accordance with the terms decided by the state.
The headmaster of Stanislas is under no illusions. He told the press that he would do his best to listen to the ministry’s recommendations, but that the removal of religious instruction demanded by the Academy is a new request that goes far beyond the scope of Stanislas alone and must be addressed “at the national level.” The question of the “distinctive character” of Catholic education, which is supposed to be guaranteed by law, is once again at the forefront. The champions of republican education cannot stand the very idea of educational freedom and dream of only one thing: getting rid of Stanislas and, through it, putting an end to private education under contract with the state.
The Bétharram affair, which highlighted serious shortcomings in a Catholic school in south-western France, clearly provides an ideal pretext for opponents of Catholic education to redouble their aggression. The rapporteurs of the parliamentary inquiry into Bétharram make no secret of their desire to bring down Stanislas, where they claim there is a “homophobic, sexist and authoritarian climate”. One of the two MPs who drafted the report on Betharram, a member of La France Insoumise (LFI), asked the prefect to “examine the possibility of terminating the association contract between the State and the Stanislas school.” This would be the greatest victory for his camp.
