ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the reception of Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy in the French general and local press between 2001 and 2021. It takes place in two phases: a period of uncritical curiosity and interest, which turns from 2018 onwards into a series of denunciations and controversies, without any real consideration of the fundamental pedagogical or educational questions: the relationship with anthroposophy, the actual practices of the schools, the training or networks from which these schools recruit, the ethics of the educators. In other words, this reception seems to talk about pedagogy but never really does. This can be explained by the absence of any academic discourse on Steiner in France; as a result, without the support of research, the public debate can only be unprepared to analyse the practices of the schools and their social, human, and sometimes commercial economies, to make a fine distinction between pedagogies, to distinguish between acceptable practices and others that are not, in an otherwise specific legislative context (1905 secularism and the fight against sectarian abuses).
