The anti-EVRAS crusades

As soon as they come to power, ultraconservative Christians, from the United States to Chile, via Italy, attack programs for education in relational, emotional and sexual life. Reactionary movements are coalescing in Europe to unravel these programs¹. The inclusion of sexuality education in school programs, addressing questions at the intersection of private and public, morality and education, clearly constitutes an issue of secularism. Overview of Belgium and France.

« In the current chaos which characterizes our country and where we see a deep political division, the debate on the introduction of sexuality education constitutes an indication of a worrying moral situation (…). In no case is it a question of giving up, if only to protect our children.»² This is how Gérard Leclerc, activist of Action française, a far-right nationalist movement, close to the fundamentalist Catholic movements, expressed himself about the education program for emotional, relational and sexual life, about to be put in place, before the start of the 2025 school year, in the French schools, from nursery to baccalaureate.

However, EVRAS, providing education independent of denominational conceptions, conveys values of citizenship, such as equality between genders, respect for differences, autonomy… It therefore reflects the balance between the educational competence of secular states democratic principles and the requirement for neutrality, necessary to respect the rights of parents.

Coincidentally with the political calendar, France and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation in Belgium have simultaneously undertaken, in 2023-2024, a renewal of their school programs in terms of sex education, juggling with the same initials of the words Éducation, Vie, Relational, Affective et Sexual to retain EVARS in France and EVRAS in Belgium.

While the introduction of these programs in 2001 in France and 2012 in the French Community had hardly made a wave, their recent reform, although in no way revolutionizing the concept, was content to strengthen its structure and contribute to ensuring that all students learn in benefits, have mobilized across the border, associations launched into moral crusades denouncing the influence of “ transgender ideology », of the « theory du genre “, but also broader issues, such as LGBTQIA+ rights, the opening of marriage to same-sex couples, reproductive rights…

On the French side, we find a constellation of associations linked to traditionalist Catholicism, one of the most active of which is Civitas, since dissolved with the approval of the Council of State which notes that it propagates a discourse encouraging discrimination. There are movements formed around far-right political parties (Vigilant Parents), the Manif pour tous (Family Union) and conspiracists denouncing child crime networks or anti-Covid vaccination (Innocence in danger, Wolf Moms). These networks spread to French-speaking Belgium, where they were joined by Muslim associations to compose a particularly heterogeneous team. The same strategies were developed to counter French and Belgian policies: namely a violent disinformation campaign intended to provoke parental panic, recruiting well beyond the ultra-conservative circles which fomented it, followed by legal action.

In France, the disinformation campaign used the more explicit Belgian EVRAS programs, extracts of which were taken out of context to frighten parents. Sexual practices would be taught there from primary school. EVARS would be a state-organized tool for indoctrination of children, which would condition them to gender ideology and wokism. The action repertoires deployed are varied and target not only the content of teaching, but also, for example, information on contraception within schools, readings for children by drag queens during Pride week³vaccination campaigns against HPV (papillomavirus)…

In French-speaking Belgium, the violence was not limited to the use of social networks, since six schools providing this training were burned down and there were bomb threats and death threats. French-speaking Belgian Catholic education has expressed no reluctance to EVRAS, while in France it is keen to mark its difference, adopting an “EAERS” program (emotional, relational and sexual education) which “ is rooted in an essential Christian conviction: man and woman are created in the image of God, equal in dignity, different and complementary »⁴which raises fears of a deviation from the program, which is nevertheless compulsory in contract schools.

Judicial appeals have made it possible, beyond the slogans, to more clearly identify the grievances formulated against sex education at school. EVRAS/EVARS would not be neutral, it would encroach on the right of parents to choose the values ​​they intend to instill in their offspring. Denying, therefore, any civic dimension to these teachings, and any legitimacy to the State and the school in this matter. These groups are leading the fight to make moral rules the guiding principles of the law, and to civically impose the consequences of religious disapproval. Their desire to redraw the public-private boundary endangers the very foundations of democracy.

In Belgium, the Belgian branch of the Innocence in Danger association and Islamic institutions took the matter to the Constitutional Court. This validated the EVRAS. She considered that, contrary to what she required for the religion and morality courses which are engaged, an exemption mechanism should not be put in place, because it is a teaching ” neutral, pluralist and objective, not pursuing the aim of indoctrination »⁵.

In France, the association Jurists for Children, SOS Education, the Family Union and Mamans louves, in particular, have contacted the Council of State of France. At the end of a reasoning parallel to that of the Belgian Constitutional Court, it considered that EVARS aims to “ contribute to respect for the equal dignity of human beings and to the fight against discrimination as well as to prevent attacks on the physical and psychological integrity of people and that these subjects are treated in a neutral and objective manner, taking into account the state of science and the state of the law, and by adapting the content to the students concerned, particularly in view of their age, and without encouraging them to adopt any particular behavior in this matter. »⁶. The rejected applicants do not give up. They brought the matter before the CESCR, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, considering that the right of parents to give their offspring an education consistent with their convictions had been violated.⁷. However, they lose sight of the fact that the UN also adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, which significantly redefine the role of parents in the education of their offspring. Their freedom must yield to the best interests of the child. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN body responsible for ensuring compliance with this Convention, calls for “ include in compulsory school curricula and make accessible to out-of-school adolescents sexual and reproductive health education that is inclusive, comprehensive and appropriate to the age of adolescents, based on scientifically established facts and human rights standards and which has been developed with the help of teenagers »⁸.