Falloux Laws

Named for the Minister of Education Alfred de Falloux, they mainly aimed at promoting Catholic teaching.

The 1851 law created a mixed system, in which some primary education establishments were public and controlled by the state and others were under the supervision of Catholic congregations (teaching orders).

This aim was largely achieved: the Falloux Law created a mixed system, public (and mostly secular) on one hand, and private and Catholic on the other.

[2] The Falloux Law was promulgated in a context in which French Catholics were worried about the increasing role of the state in education since the Revolution of 1789 and the reorganisation of the imperial University.

They thought that the imperial education system, inherited from the First Empire's reforms, excessively diffused Enlightenment, republican and socialist ideas.

The Bourbon Restoration had in part satisfied these wants, by tolerating teaching by religious congregations, although it still theoretically remained prohibited, and had also granted more weight to bishops in the education system, enabling schooling programs to give more attention to Catholicism.

The newly elected President Louis Napoléon Bonaparte replaced Carnot with Alfred de Falloux as Minister of Public Instruction in December 1848, the latter remaining in Odilon Barrot's government until May 1849.

Falloux clearly aimed at restoring Roman Catholicism to the forefront of French schooling and society, describing his program in his Memoirs: "God in education.

Presided by the Minister Falloux himself, it had as vice-president Adolphe Thiers,[4] and included Catholics such as the archbishop of Paris Mgr Sibour, the abbot Dupanloup (who later became bishop of Orléans), etc.

[4] Upset by this measure, in part because the December 1848 decree had given the initiative for the legislative process, concerning organic laws, to the Assembly, the latter nominated a new parliamentary Commission to re-establish its prerogatives following a proposition by the moderate Republican Pascal Duprat.

[4] This parallel Commission was presided by the Minister of Public Instruction de Vaulabelle and had as secretary the Republican Jules Simon.

Deputy Boubée, a scientist and University lecturer, proposed that the draft education law be one of those scrutinised, but his motion was rejected by 458 votes against 307.

But these ones gave an absolute majority to the conservative Parti de l'Ordre, mainly composed of Catholic monarchists, whether Orleanists or Legitimists, such as Falloux who was elected deputy.

[4] Despite having been dissolved, the Commission presided by Barthélémy Saint-Hilaire and named by Carnot submitted its draft and report to the Assembly on 10 April 1849.

[4] In September 1849, Falloux fell sick, and was replaced in October as Minister of Public Instruction by Félix Esquirou de Parieu.

In 1904, among increasing voices to repeal entirely the Falloux Law, the Minister Emile Combes prohibited religious congregations from teaching, including in private schools.

Although these subsidies were interrupted following the Liberation, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) did not repeal the teaching authorisation given to congregations.