The president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse unveiled this Friday, November 22, “twelve caricatures which made the Republic” and which will now be studied in high schools.
For the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks targeting the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, the president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, unveiled this Friday, November 22, the twelve caricatures which will be studied in Ile-de-France high schools.
“The stakes are all the more important since the high school students we welcome in our classes were aged five to eight years in 2015. They therefore probably only have a vague, very fragmentary memory of what, at Charlie Hebdo or at the Bataclan, was a national trauma,” she explained.
Among these caricatures, students will discover the first satirical drawings representing King Louis-Philippe, often represented in the form of a pear in 1831. This selection evokes freedom of the press, criticism of power, and the influence of social networks.
No drawings with Mohammed, Jesus or Moses
Religion is also evoked through drawings illustrating the separation of churches and state at the very beginning of the 20th century. Coco's drawing published in 2017 in Charlie Hebdo, where it is written “And God created… humor” above three Christian, Jewish and Muslim representatives who respond with the same voice: “it's written nowhere .” On the other hand, the prophet Mohammed, Jesus or even Moses are absent from the drawings chosen by the Region so as not to “immediately offend” the high school students in the message transmitted.
“All religions, all beliefs, all political thoughts, all institutions can be mocked because it is not an attack on beliefs, it is simply the exercise of freedom of expression and that is what which should be remembered”, explains Pierre Liscia, the special delegate to the regional council responsible for secularism and citizenship.
The caricatures will be studied in class by volunteer teachers from January 2025 until 2027. They will receive decryption and recontextualization sheets. The region also called on the media education association Dessinez Create Liberté, which was founded by Charlie Hebdo and SOS Racisme.
“[Les enseignants] did not wait for the Region
“I put myself in their place because I am a teacher. I tell myself that if I am supported, if I am accompanied, I would do it all the more willingly”, considers Pierre-Henri Tavoillot, the philosopher commissioned by Valérie Pécresse on questions of secularism and designer of the program including the twelve drawings.
“If someone has to make proposals of this nature, in this case it is rather the National Education, it is one of the things which is already implemented by a certain number of teachers. They do not have waited for an incident to potentially be active on these issues”, moderated Bruno Bobkiewicz, general secretary of the management staff union SNPDEN-UNSA, invited this Thursday morning on BFM Paris Île-de-France.
At the same time, the community will launch a major caricature competition for high school students from January 1 to April 27 on the theme of “fake news”.
Nicolas Dumas with Florent Bascoul
