ABSTRACT
Philosophy is part of the French education system. A subject entitled Moral and Civic Education was created in 2013. It started in secondary schools and according to the Ministry of Education, "moral education is about linking the individual to the common, to re-articulate the moral with the civic, the person with the citizen, and to find adequate conditions to make a community". This chapter describes around three case studies: firstly former French president Nicolas Sarkozy's Dakar discourse of 2007, then the 2005 dispute about the "positive role of colonization". And the removal and quick reinstatement of the history of Africa in secondary schools in October 2015 paired with the question of French post-colonial citizens and immigration in the 2017 presidential elections. Centuries of colonialism, decolonization, World Wars and post-colonial immigration with its cohort of racism, discrimination and oppression widened the gap between these values taught in school and the experiences of post-colonial children of the Republic.
