The City of Paris decided, Wednesday January 17, to suspend the payment of subsidies to the Stanislas school, a private Catholic education system. The municipality added, in a press release, that this decision was “as a precautionary measure, pending the clarifications required from the State”.

This decision follows the publication Tuesday evening by Mediapart of an investigation report from a mission carried out by the general inspectors which denounces in particular a “drift”, and “intolerable speeches” on homosexuality and compulsory catechism of the college of the establishment located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris), where the three sons of the Minister of National Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, are educated.

The Stanislas private school will be the subject of an “action plan” followed with “rigor”, the Minister of Education promised on Wednesday, but management and the diocese of Paris judge that this document does not validate the serious criticisms relayed in the media. The report “was ordered in February 2023, and completed at the beginning of August 2023. And immediately Gabriel Attal asked the rectorate and the general inspectorate to follow an action plan which includes almost fifteen measures,” declared Amélie Oudéa-Castéra on France 2. This plan “will be followed with all the necessary rigor,” added the minister.

“I would like to point out that this report does not reveal any acts of homophobia or any cases of harassment. The only case of homophobia was reported to the prosecutor via the article 40 procedure,” said the minister, accused of having denigrated public education to justify the transfer of her eldest son to Stanislas.

In a new article published Wednesday evening, Mediapart describes, with supporting recording, other cases of homophobic remarks and behavior in the establishment.

Report to the Paris prosecutor

The director of the Stanislas school, Frédéric Gautier, was “surprised” by the publication of this report and asserted that the inspectors “do not confirm the facts of homophobia, sexism and authoritarianism highlighted by the articles press release,” in a statement released Tuesday. “We take note of the fourteen recommendations in the report,” he added.

These “must be the subject of in-depth work with the Paris rectorate,” he specified in a second press release on Wednesday. The establishment has “internally started to work” on those which fall under its “responsibility”.

For its part, the diocesan management of Catholic education in Paris estimated that “with the exception of a single case” which “was treated by terminating the functions of the person concerned”, it “was not no mention of possible sanctions in [the] exchanges with the administration” or “serious irregularity”. “The [inspection] mission told us that it did not confirm the accusations which had motivated this investigation,” affirms the diocesan management.

Senators Ian Brossat and Pierre Ouzoulias (Communist Party), for their part, announced “to take legal action alongside SOS Homophobia” in view of the conclusions of the report. They claim to make “a report to the Paris prosecutor under article 40 of the code of criminal procedure” and to contact “the Paris prefect through a lawyer to request the deconvention of the high school”.

The City of Paris has paid, for the 2022-2023 school year, for the nursery, elementary and middle schools of the Stanislas establishment an amount of 1,373,905 euros, corresponding to the 483 students enrolled in nursery and elementary schools , and to the 1,329 middle school students, within the framework of the rules on the financing of private establishments under contract by communities. Contacted by Agence France-Presse, Paris City Hall emphasizes that “payment of upcoming installments” to the establishment will be suspended for the current year, without further details. In total, the school welcomes 3,500 students from nursery to preparatory classes.