Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on March 6, 2024. It was translated from French into English by the Observatory and subsequently edited to conform to Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. While the acronym “INSPE” is not explicitly defined, it most likely refers to Instituts Nationaux Supérieurs du Professorat et de l’Éducation, which translates to the National Higher Institutes for Teaching and Education.
The month of March sees a proliferation of job advertisements for recruitment in higher education establishments, of which the INSPE are now part in complete autonomy. The word “autonomy” is undoubtedly inappropriate when talking about the civil service, as some believe themselves to be freed by the performative magic of the word from any accountability to the public that finances them.
This is how, as every year, we see dozens and dozens of job profiles appear, all written in low-end inclusive writing, with lots of “midpoints” and other inappropriate pleasantries on the window of a public establishment.
One position particularly caught our attention. It was a position published by a Teacher Training Institute (INSPE) in Versailles that is looking to recruit at the highest level of the Administration, an A+ executive “University Professor” on a French teaching profile pompously renamed “language teaching” at the Master’s level of training for school teachers. Here is a screenshot of an essential part of the profile that revealed this madness:
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Improper drafting of the profile constitutes an insidious maneuver of militant hijacking of an administration’s website. It should be noted that job profiles are written by teachers gathered in an electoral commission who agree on a text of this type and then transmit it to the administration directly, which publishes them. This type of use, however, is a clear breach of the legislative and regulatory provisions in force. It seriously tarnishes the image of the prestigious institution and makes it necessary to remind those concerned of the various obligations incumbent on them. They must in particular:
- Write any document intended for external use IN FRENCH and in readable and understandable terms, a criterion that inclusive writing does not meet.
- Respect the ban on the use of this spelling which is enacted by the circular of the Prime Minister of November 21, 2017, and by that of May 5, 2021 intended for rectors and other senior officials of National Education, as well as by the law soon to be promulgated which applies said ban to all “publications emanating from public persons or private persons charged with a public service mission.”
- Respect the duty of reserve of all civil servants, which arises from the principle of neutrality of the public service and prohibits them from using their function as an instrument of any propaganda.
- Respect, in the exercise of their functions, the grammatical and syntactic rules which the use of so-called inclusive writing flouts without restraint.
This is a militant and proselytizing maneuver, prohibited not only by the principle of secularism that has governed all public educational establishments since the 1880s, but also by a constant jurisprudence of the Council of State that has confirmed the obligation of reserve of all civil servants since the 1930s. According to the permanent secretary of the French Academy, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, its “promoters violate the rhythms of language evolution, according to a brutal, arbitrary and uncoordinated injunction that ignores the ecology of the word.” In more prosaic terms, this subterfuge reflects a contempt for the rules to which the execution of their functions subjects any public agent, a fortiori if they are a teacher.
The failings mentioned above are legally reprehensible, but they are also morally reprehensible on the part of anyone involved in the training of future teachers. This aggravating factor justifies a report to the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life, whose rules these activists openly violate.
Alerted by our monitoring tools, our readers decided to write to the administration. After a little over a thousand emails having circulated from the Rectorate to the Ministry, we learned of the administration’s retreat which is going back on all the published job profiles. The new profile is available online here. Here is a copy of the same passage, more reasonable:
No one yet knows whether the use of the indefinite “a person” is exclusive of any man who identifies as a man, and of any woman who identifies as a man too, but it doesn’t matter. There are solutions to assert the authority of the law over the administration, and it is up to those in charge to do their job. Even if they are afraid of their colleague in the office opposite.
But in reality, it is a modest victory. It would take a full-time position to be able to follow the evolution of each drift of the institution. Here for example, just in French language and literature this year on the Galaxie site are some job profiles that you will easily recognize are all written on the model of that of the INSPE. It is of course possible to contact each president to remind him of his duty, but it is too ambitious a task for us yet. It should also be known that all the University Presidents, who sign each of these job descriptions, belong to the association France University whose President’s email is [email protected], and one could imagine that he could feel concerned by this type of information, but let’s not dream.
This is what every new candidate for recruitment in the University must face before applying:
Positions 4790, 4791, 4792 of Professor of French Language and Literature
University of Dijon
email: [email protected]
Post 4751 in French stylistics
Toulouse 2 (ex Mirail, Jean Jaurès)
email: [email protected]
Position 4752 in Language Sciences
Toulouse 2 (ex Mirail, Jean Jaurès)
email: [email protected]
Post 4394 in Medieval Language and Literature,
BORDEAUX MOUNTAIN
email: [email protected]
Position 0191 in French Language and Literature,
CLERMONT AUVERGNE
email: [email protected]
Post 4904 in Southern Literature,
Nanterre
email: [email protected]
Post 4857 in French Language and Literature,
Nanterre
email: [email protected]
As you can see for yourself, it would be like filling the Danaïdes barrel to continue this watch. But imagine the position of a young candidate: should he not ask himself, even before joining the civil service, whether he should not make concessions to this type of propaganda?
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One very big thing I am noticing here is that French professors are part of the “civil service” which (I presume) is essentially similar to what it means here, employment by the Federal Government. To work for, say, the Office of Underwater Basket-weaving, i.e. to be one of the people that DOGE is trying to get rid of.
And this doesn’t discount, say, Air Traffic Controllers or Border Guards, etc — but they are in the civil service.
American professors, even those at public universities, absolutely are NOT! (Some community college faculty are, for historical reasons.)
The concept of a Tenure Track professor at a R1 or R2 university being in the Federal civil service is unimaginable for a variety of reasons including the fact that these are STATE institutions.
There is one other thing here — Old French is like Old English, e,g. the King James Bible or John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) — or even Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter (1850).
Forget a French system of government that we would never tolerate in this country, with the National government having direct authority over both local schools and state universities, and a national system of teacher education/certification that is fully integrated with college curricula. Forget also that the French that most Americans hear spoken, the Quebecois of Canada or Arcadian (“Cagin”) French of Louisiana, are at (the least) distinctly different dialects of the French spoken in France.
What France appears to have done, what the author is upset about France no longer doing, is requiring French Language Arts teachers (i.e. the equivalent to our “English” teachers) to learn the proper construction, grammar and spelling of a language that apparently hasn’t changed the way that English has. France apparently used to require prospective French teachers to learn archival French, which they probably consider to be “correct” French.
Now the question I have is WHY are they stopping this, why now? Could it be the influx of a large number of immigrants who neither know nor want to learn the “correct” French grammar and spelling? Or is it that their France-born, French-speaking K-12 teachers can’t/won’t learn this?
The Scarlet Letter would be a great book for high school students — if you had the time to first teach the language and historical context so they could understand it…