French military schools face a backlash after excluding Catholic pupils, exposing ideological bias and raising concerns over future army recruitment.
Hélène de LAUZUN
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A scandal has come to light alleging that pupils from French independent Catholic schools were deliberately excluded during the admissions process for a military secondary school. This case, which serves as a reminder that the victims of discrimination are not always those we might expect or those who make a profession of it, highlights a deeper problem affecting the military establishment: can the army today do without traditional families who, alongside their faith, still instil in their children a love of their country and a sense of sacrifice?
The affair was revealed by Le Figaro in early July. Based on accounts from several families, it emerged that the prestigious Prytanée de la Flèche—a military high school preparing its pupils for officer training colleges such as Saint-Cyr or the Naval Academy—was systematically rejecting applications from pupils attending independent Catholic schools.
It might have been a coincidence or a misunderstanding, but it turned out that the management fully stood by this decision: “It is set out in black and white in its Parcoursup report for the 2025 intake [the system used to manage French pupils’ applications for higher education, Ed.], accessible to candidates via the allocation platform. Enrolment in non-state-funded schools is one of the exclusionary criteria leading to certain applicants not being ranked,” Le Figaro explains. This means that pupils from these schools are not even considered. The model applied at La Flèche is also in place at other renowned military schools in France, such as those in Autun and Aix-en-Provence.
The notification of rejection alarmed the parents of high-achieving pupils, who could not understand how their sons could have been rejected in this way. Upon further investigation, it emerged that all the pupils concerned had been educated at traditionalist Catholic schools, either affiliated with the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest or linked to the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X. The independent Catholic schools in question have a reputation for excellence and high-quality education: there was therefore inevitably cause for suspicion regarding the reasons behind the rejection.
The association Créer son école, led by Anne Coffinier-Barry , has initiated urgent legal proceedings alongside the parents. Thanks to the support of this organisation, which is tasked with supporting independent schools and defending their rights—rights often flouted by a state keen to concentrate educational privilege exclusively in its own hands—the case was referred to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which was compelled to launch an investigation and concluded that there had been clear discrimination. After initially downplaying the facts, dismissing them as the result of an “individual” decision, the Ministry described the events as “totally unacceptable” and promised disciplinary action.
The affair is reminiscent of a well-known scandal in French history, remembered as the Affaire des fiches (Affair of the Cards). At the start of the 20th century, during a period of militant anti-clericalism—which was to lead to the separation of church and state in 1905 and the persecution of religious orders—a government was brought down after it was revealed that the Ministry of War had been compiling personal files on officers based on their relationship with the Catholic faith and their religious practice. Promotions were frozen and officers were subjected to harassment. Those accused of attending Mass a little too often found themselves sidelined without further explanation. The affair gave rise to a memorable parliamentary session during which a nationalist MP slapped the minister of war—who was suspected of having Masonic connections—twice across the face.
Today, we no longer see this sort of colourful scandal, but hatred of Catholicism still has a few zealous supporters within the French civil service.
It is to be hoped that these wrongs will be righted and that the young men who have thus seen their hopes of serving in the army unjustly dashed for two years will receive redress.
However, this scandal , seemingly a relatively minor incident, reveals a deeper problem. It is no longer a secret that all ‘commitment-based’ professions have lost their appeal. No one wants to become a teacher, doctor, police officer, or soldier anymore—too many constraints for too little reward, with a pittance in pay, and public disgrace to boot.
Yet there are still a few families, heirs to an old France that is fading away, where it is still taught—perhaps with a touch of irresponsible nostalgia—that there is no nobler ideal than serving one’s country and sacrificing oneself for it. It is precisely from this sort of family—where there is an instinctive mistrust of the state education system, which, by contrast, spends its time disparaging this sort of ideal—that the bulk of pupils for independent schools, Catholic ones at that, are recruited. And it is ultimately these pupils who turn up at the gates of military schools.
By cutting themselves off from this source of recruitment, the ideologues who seek to bar the way for young Catholics would do well to consider a plan B, for it is by no means certain that, amongst the ranks of green activists, anti-globalisation campaigners, or decolonialists, there are many who are motivated by a military career and enthusiastic about the idea of getting shot in the Sahel whilst in uniform—all for the now sole honour of being denounced as fascists by their fellow countrymen. The Ministry of the Armed Forces, in calling its somewhat overzealous civil servants to order, has certainly understood this well.
Original article: europeanconservative.com