ABSTRACT
It is not without cause that French education is frequently cited as a striking example of Jacobinism in action. To be sure, the autonomy of the Ministry of National Education has always been limited by the existence of a private sector and by intrastate conflict. 1 The fact remains that since the First Empire, and particularly since the Third Republic, Paris has prescribed curriculum, hired teachers, allocated funds, and in general presided over an educational structure that is more centralized than those found in other Western democracies. It will be the purpose of this paper to examine two assaults on Jacobinism in French education in the course of the Fifth Republic. Each has provoked massive street demonstrations that loom as key political events of the past quarter-century. The first, the institutionalization of state support for private education, represents a major defeat for the Jacobin view that pluralism is a threat to the general interest and to the Republic itself. The second, the less successful attempts at decentralization led by Edgar Faure, Alain Savary, René Monory, Alain Devaquet, and others, demonstrates the continuing strength of the ideas and interests linked to the centralized université. The partisans of state support for private education were more successful in part because their assault came from outside the state structure of education and hence was not subject to all of the constraints upon reformers working within that structure.
