Catholic schools in France are being subjected to state inspections considered intrusive and abusive, according to a report from the General Secretariat of Catholic Education (SGEC). The document, published on December 8, denounces methods that violate the dignity of the teaching staff and the own identity of confessional centers, under the pretext of ensuring educational quality.
According to Il Tempo, the SGEC report—of 14 pages and widely disseminated by national press agencies—does not question the principle of state supervision, but the practices employed by the inspectors, qualified as “abusive” and “intrusive”. In the opinion of its authors, these actions have compromised both the dignity of educators and the specific character of Catholic school institutions, recognized by French legislation.
The tightening of controls is framed in the climate generated after the Bétharram case, related to the school of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Atlantic Pyrenees, where physical and sexual abuses committed over decades were reported. As a result of this scandal, a parliamentary commission called for strengthening inspections in educational centers to ensure greater protection of minors.
However, from the beginning of this new phase of controls, Catholic school officials expressed their fear of a political instrumentalization of the inspections. Testimonies collected by the SGEC itself describe “disproportionate displays of force”, with inspectors who reportedly arrived in large groups, entering classrooms without prior notice, interrupting classes, photographing school spaces, directly questioning students, and searching backpacks.
According to EWTN, some teachers reported that the inspectors entered classrooms without identifying themselves, reviewed notebooks during lessons, or questioned staff in front of the children. The report considers particularly disturbing the questions about personal religious practices, such as attendance at Sunday Mass, as well as the photographing of students’ spiritual diaries, conceived as private documents. It also mentions pressures to remove Christian symbols and references from educational projects, in contradiction with the legal recognition of the specific character of Catholic schools.
The document also includes indications from inspectors aimed at reducing the distinctive character of the centers in favor of a strictly secular conception of public education. In one of the cited cases, a school was urged to subordinate its religious charism to the state’s teaching mission, which the authors interpret as an attempt at ideological imposition incompatible with educational freedom.
For the SGEC, the scope and intensity of these inspections highlight a growing tension between the principle of French state secularism and the right of parents to education in accordance with their convictions, a fundamental right that the report considers threatened by the current drift of the controls.