“Everyone is free to use the caricature or not and if there is a deviation, it is the responsibility of the teacher”, 10 years after the Charlie Hebdo attack, teachers question themselves

Following the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, the Ministry of National Education urged teachers to address the issue of satirical images. Even today, due to lack of training, teachers say they are helpless.

On January 8, 2015, Laurent Bihl walked through the door of the teachers' room like every morning. As soon as he entered the room “obviously crowded” that most of the 180 teachers at this high school in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) turn to him. At the time, the history and geography professor was writing his thesis on satirical images.

Laurent Bihl then suggested setting up an exhibition on anticlerical caricature. But he poses a condition. “We do it in one of the halls and, in another, we leave a completely free space so that the students can caricature us.” Even in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, for his colleagues, “there was no question of it […] the satirical image in class is complex”, laments the man who is today a lecturer at the University of Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne

“I have never experienced any training or support on the issue of secularism,” explains Martin*, another history and geography professor. Working in a high school in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) for 4 years, he remembers “the single, very smooth message without any substantive reflection” from the Ministry of National Education, the day of the minute of silence for Samuel Paty.

I am no more secular than a mathematics teacher.

Ludovic Sot, professor of history and geography in Sceaux (Yvelines)

At the other end of Île-de-France, the observation is repeated. When it exists, “teacher training is disappearing”, alert Ludovic Sot who has taught history and geography at the Marie-Curie high school in Sceaux (Yvelines) for 17 years. In his forty-five year career, he was able to observe the systematic injunction from the Ministry of Education to teachers to speak to students after each attack.

“This is not a bad thing, but I regret that this is the sole responsibility of those who teach my subject or philosophy […] I am no more secular than a mathematics teacher”, he continues. After the assassination of Samuel Paty, common time had to be dedicated by each teacher to a discussion with the students. “Some colleagues dodged it because they expected it to be up to us to do it.”

But for Ludovic Sot no evolution is possible without “the need to support young teachers on an ongoing basis. Other than with two hours of training at the end of a day of classes.”

At the time of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, only one specific introduction to satirical images existed for teachers. Taught by Laurent Bihl and another professor, it has since been deleted. “Everyone is free to use the caricature or not and if there is a deviation, it is the responsibility of the teacher,” observes the lecturer. “It’s extremely serious because everything rests on his shoulders and can therefore lead to self-censorship.”

Also read: Charlie Hebdo attack: “We can make fun of everything”, caricatures and drawings, educational tools for teachers

Enrichment of the National Library of France, interventions by associations (Cartooning for peace, Papiers Nickelés etc.) or even sessions provided by the Center for Media and Information Education (CLEMI): resources available to teachers “have made an absolutely formidable qualitative leap over the past 10 years”, REMARK Laurent Bihl. “The concern is that it remains cosmetic. The basis of the school is didactics. And in terms of pedagogy, it is total desert. Before 2015, there was almost nothing and, after that, There’s almost nothing either.”

The educational direction is partly recorded in the official bulletin (BO) provided by National Education. It both indicates the concepts to be studied and guides the discourse to be given to the students.. “The BO of Moral and Civic Education (EMC) is ridiculous with its two pages”, Martin* is alarmed.

“In many places, we cannot simply apply empty directives if we want to remain audible,” continues this teacher from a high school in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis). He does not have “never had the need” of show caricatures. Most of his students are Muslims and often see “the secularism as well as legalized Islamophobia and feel systematically blamed after each attack.

Secularism is mobilized most of the time against Islam

Martin*, professor of history and geography in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis)

“It’s difficult for a teacher, because this speech is legitimate,” he believes. If secularism was historically born in opposition to Catholicism, “she is mobilized most of the time against Islam.” This history and geography teacher denounces a “general hypocrisy” in front “the existence of far-right Islamophobic discourse which is never mentioned by the Ministry of National Education”.

“This lack of information from teachers is accompanied by a lack of training for students”, notes Laurent Bihl who spoke in front of dozens of classes after the Charlie attacks. “I did not encounter violence or refusal from the students. But rather a lack of understanding and a number of questions.”

For the academic, it is in the habit of students to “this spirit of impropriety and subversion” that is another of the avenues neglected by National Education. “The violence of the image is not there to displease, offend or shock, but to provoke debate.”

The violence of the image is not there to displease, offend or shock but to provoke debate

Laurent Bihl, lecturer at Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne University

And yet, “school textbooks are teeming with dozens of caricatures“, notes Laurent Bihl, but “no image is studied for itself and is always accompanied by a text”. Form rather than substance. This is where the problem lies. “Would there have been a Paty affair if the students had been trained differently beforehand?”

Caricatures are only one of the tools that can be used during EMC, which plays a role “a very important role in the development of critical thinking”, analyzes Ludovic Sot. For the teacher from Sceaux (Yvelines), “knowledge immediately accessible and shared on social networks” accentuates the need for this learning day by day.

Ce “information flow” goes against the satirical image which “is intended to stop the gaze“, adds Laurent Bihl. “Caricature is the opposite of scrolling”, he laughs. “It is not an easy pedagogy and it also requires a paradigm shift in national education.”

Ludovic Sot does not report a major break in the progress of civic education since the Charlie Hebdo attack, but notes that “many more courses have been undertaken on secularism and democracy even though, for a long time, EMC was not sufficiently highlighted”.

What can we say about the future of caricature in schools? Laurent Bihl sees in the inauguration of a press cartoon house in 2027 in Paris, “the only slightly positive sign on the not-distant political calendar.” The event remains the work of the Ministry of Culture, but the academic wants to be optimistic: “National Education can still take the bull by the horns”.

* the first name has been changed