Article source: "Laïcité: financements publics de l’enseignement privé", Eddy Khaldi, ABC de la laïcité, Médiapart Blog, 04/01/2017
An interesting study published in early January by the Fédération Nationale de la Libre Pensée (National Federation for Free Thought, the leading French humanist association, ed.) shows that almost 7.5 billion euros have been misappropriated from the budget of the French education ministry to fund private primary and secondary schools. And that is only one tiny part of the public funding for private education, whose sources are getting more and more difficult to trace.
An additional sum of over 11.5 billion euros from public or semi public funds can be added to the 7.5 billion euros from the ministry, making a total of over 19 billion euros a year in subsidies.
Under the 1982 and 2004 French decentralisation laws – concerning the division of responsibilities among local councils, départements, regions and the State – the various local authorities have had to take on additional charges. For instance, in 2014, they had to provide private schools with 3.3 billion euros.
However, as the ministry of education’s official 2016 report entitled "Repères et références statistiques" indicates, other examples of public funding need to be added to that sum: 918m paid by other ministries and 416m from various public services, for a total of 1.43 billion euros. This document also shows to what extent business taxes are channeled into funding private education, mostly via France's hypothecated apprenticeship and lifelong training tax, amounting to 4.2 billion euros. Not to forget the money paid by households to fund private schools; these 4 billion euros are subject to a 66 % tax deduction1, that is 2.64 billion euros in lost tax revenue.
This tax deduction on ‘charitable’ donations was established between 2008 and 2011. Shortly after the Fondation pour l'école(French School Foundation) was created, on 18 March 2008, its ‘public benefit’ was officially decreed and it was granted charitable status. On 4 August 2011, the French interior and education ministries even granted it the right to act as an umbrella organisation for smaller charities. By acquiring the status of an ‘umbrella charity’, like the Fondation de France, the Fondation pour l'école has become one of the few French charitable foundations entitled to offer some of the biggest patrons (private individuals as well as corporations) the opportunity to launch an educational charity under its aegis. And with the decree issued on 16 February 2010, French education minister Luc Châtel gave his blessing to the newly created Fondation Saint Matthieu2, which is officially linked to the Catholic Church. The presentation brochure could not be clearer: "The bishops of France [...] and the Catholic Education Service have decided to create the Fondation Saint Matthieu pour l'École Catholique. This initiative is a step further in the Christian community's constant efforts to meet the urgent need for education."
What good citizen could fail to consider it indecent to ask the taxpayer to subsidise their taxi fare on the grounds that they refuse to take public transport? What good citizen would dare claim it was illegal to refuse public subsidy for their private transport, using the absurd argument that it was against their fundamental freedom of movement? Yet this is precisely the fallacious argument shamelessly put forward by those who twist the concept of ‘freedom of education’ to justify public funding. Home schooling or attending a non-contractual private school is formally excluded from any state subsidy, despite being an expression of precisely the same ‘freedom of education’. This means that the education sector has the dubious privilege of being the only public service for which the State funds its own rivals, to the detriment of society and the public finances, almost exclusively for the benefit of one single religion. The end result is a destruction of social harmony and the dismantling of the republican education system.
Author's Notes
1 66 % of the value of charitable donations is deductable from French income tax (up to a total limit of 20% of all taxable income). Where the ISF wealth tax is concerned, 75 % of the value of donations is deductible (up to a limit of 50,000 euros) under the 2007 Tepa Act.
2 "The foundation’s mission is to meet the real estate investment needs of Catholic Education schools (renovation, expansion, acquisition of properties and bringing them into compliance with standards), and to foster mutual assistance between them." [Quotation not sourced, ed.]
Translated by Véronique Leblanc and Ragini Sekhar
Editing by Sam Trainor