Part IV - The reform agenda for recovered sovereignty
17 - Culture, School, and National Continuity
Culture and education constitute the immaterial foundation of national sovereignty. A nation that does not transmit its history, its language, its values and its traditions to its youth deprives itself of its identity and weakens its cohesion. In a context of refoundation, school must once again become the place where knowledge, civic sense and the sense of national continuity are built, while incarnating the diversity of our territory and our peoples.
Transmission historique et civique
School teaches the history of France not as a succession of events, but as a narrative that grounds the national story and allows citizens to understand their place in the continuity of the State. Geography, language and institutions are studied to offer students a precise knowledge of their country, its territories and its strategic stakes: thus forming the basis of a responsible and enlightened citizenship.
Une école centrée sur l'essentiel
Core knowledge - French, mathematics, English, history and geography - remains the heart of the curriculum. It is taught with rigor, clarity and high standards, in order to give each student the intellectual tools necessary to participate fully in national and civic life. The objective is to concentrate teaching on what builds critical thinking and the mastery of skills essential to the future, while integrating practical activities that connect knowledge to the concrete reality of the territory. Subjects considered ancillary - visual arts, music, second foreign language, physical education, technology at middle school level - may be reduced to free up time for these priority activities. Teachers retain room for maneuver to adapt content to their context and students, except for the founding subjects that the nation mandates.
Traditional Cooking - A New Subject
This subject constitutes a deliberate exception to the principle of concentration on core subjects, justified by its four simultaneous functions: national cohesion through the sharing of a common heritage, intergenerational transmission of savoir-faire and culinary memory, awareness of the terroir and natural cycles, and direct support for local agriculture. Far from the cliché of the domestic science class, the aim is to instill in students French gastronomic culture, a love of produce and an awareness of the respect owed to what one consumes: behind a piece of meat stands an animal, and every product conceals a producer. Students learn to prepare emblematic dishes from mainland France but also from overseas territories - the Antilles, Guyane, Polynésie and others - to celebrate the full diversity of France. The valorization of food waste is integrated through recipes designed to reduce wastage.
Each student keeps their own recipe book, a practical guide for adult life and a record of their knowledge of French terroirs. Interventions by craftspeople, producers and retirees bring together savoir-faire, history and the lived experience of the territories. Classes travel to production sites to discover agriculture, livestock farming, fishing and rural or maritime life: creating a direct link between learning and the reality of the nation.
These classes have a concrete application in school canteens. Canteens source through short supply chains, or failing that French products drawn preferably from cooperatives or small local producers, strictly respecting seasonality. No foreign product appears on students' plates as long as a French equivalent is available: healthy, flavorful meals anchored in the national terroir, which reconnect students to natural cycles and agricultural realities, and directly support French agriculture, in particular small producers. With family contributions graduated across 20 levels from 1 to 11 euros per meal, this measure is costed at 2 to 3 billion euros per year, with the meal estimated at around 10 to 12 euros.
Education and Links Between Mainland France and the Overseas Territories
School is not only a place of academic teaching: it is a major instrument of national cohesion and of the transmission of the bond between all French people, regardless of their place of birth or their territory. For too long, France has focused on mainland France, neglecting the human, cultural and heritage richness of its overseas territories. Restoring this bond is a priority to ensure national continuity and the unity of the country.
Students from overseas territories benefit from trips to mainland France, going beyond Paris to discover emblematic sites of national heritage - Mont-Saint-Michel, Mont-Valérien and other symbolic sites linked to history, culture or local production. These stays create bonds with mainland France, deepen understanding of the historical and cultural diversity of the territory and strengthen the sense of belonging to a single nation.
Conversely, students from mainland France discover the overseas territories - Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, La Réunion, Mayotte, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Polynésie française, Wallis-et-Futuna, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy - to learn about their natural, historical and scientific heritage, understand their local realities and strengthen the bond between French citizens.
The trips also include travel between overseas territories themselves: a Réunionnais visits Guyane, a Calédonien visits Polynésie française, a Guadeloupéen visits Martinique. The objective is for every young person to understand that France is not limited to mainland France, that all territories are equivalent and that national citizenship implies knowledge of and respect for the country as a whole. If one or more territories have not been experienced during the school years, military service will compensate for this gap by sending the young adult concerned to a barracks located in those territories.
These trips are not touristic: they are pedagogical and experiential, with visits to local producers, immersion in economic and agricultural activities, participation in collective projects. Unique experiences - climbing the Piton de la Fournaise in La Réunion or watching a rocket launch at Kourou - make the richness and strategic stakes of these territories concretely understood.
Beyond French borders, international exchanges prioritize politically stable French-speaking countries - Québec, Sénégal and other relevant francophone partners depending on geopolitical circumstances. The objective is to strengthen the French language as a vector of cohesion and cultural convergence, to create lasting bonds between younger generations and to transmit the common identity shared across the entire francophonie.
The principle is simple: to bring all French people closer together, to foster the discovery of national and overseas heritage, to consolidate the French language as a pillar of cohesion and cultural sovereignty. The ultimate goal is that, by the end of their schooling, each student will have been able to visit as many overseas territories as possible and understood their role in the French nation, while having concretely experienced their heritage and their economy.
Culture and Sovereignty
Culture is not mere entertainment: it is a lever of sovereignty. Language, literature, visual and plastic arts, music, theatre, cinema, historical and architectural heritage, as well as gastronomy incarnate collective memory and identity. Their transmission ensures national continuity, strengthens the sense of belonging and protects the country against any cultural dilution or foreign domination.
The national narrative, consolidated by history and material and immaterial culture, constitutes a political and civic foundation unifying the population beyond local, social or ideological divisions. It forges the framework within which citizens understand shared stakes, share common reference points and can act collectively for the general interest.
School and culture act in concert: forming competent and conscious citizens, while keeping alive the love of the country, its traditions and its diversity. The rigorous teaching of core subjects is complemented by concrete cultural practices - artistic workshops, theatre, music, heritage outings, traditional cooking and gastronomic heritage, exploration of contemporary cultural productions -.
The National Public Heritage Institution
France possesses approximately 43,000 listed or registered historic monuments, spread across the entire national territory and overseas territories. This exceptional heritage suffers from a dual structural problem: the dispersal of responsibilities between communes, departments, regions and the State, and the progressive disappearance of the craft savoir-faire necessary for its upkeep.
A National Public Heritage Institution - EPNP - is created to pilot, finance and carry out the upkeep and restoration of French monumental heritage. This is not an additional administrative manager: it is a living body of trades, endowed with its own specialized salaried workers, organized around the transmission of savoir-faire and long-term strategic planning. It plans the upkeep of each monument over multi-year cycles of 10 to 20 years with measurable objectives and identified responsible parties, carries out works directly without systematic outsourcing, transmits savoir-faire in partnership with the Compagnons du Devoir, assesses the conservation status of the heritage stock via regular audits transmitted to the HCEP, and coordinates with the Commissariat au Plan the planning of investments and the allocation of budgets.
The permanent trades body counts between 5,000 and 8,000 specialized workers - stone cutting and sculpture, traditional timber framing, decorative ironwork, gilding and conservation painting, stained glass, masonry and traditional renders, staff and plasterwork, traditional roofing, joinery and cabinet-making, naval carpentry for maritime heritage and overseas territories -.
The most devastating revelation of the Notre-Dame restoration project was the inability to quickly find carpenters mastering oak cutting according to traditional techniques. Savoir-faire that had taken centuries to build up had practically disappeared for lack of stable outlets. It was necessary to search across all of France, and sometimes abroad. The EPNP resolves this problem structurally: these professionals are not itinerant site workers, they are employed full-time, continuously trained, and accumulate irreplaceable technical and historical knowledge of the monuments in their charge. Estimated salary budget between 175 and 360 million euros per year: an amount far lower than the current cost of emergency outsourced works, not counting the inestimable value of savoir-faire kept permanently alive.
The Partnership with the Compagnons du Devoir
The Compagnons du Devoir are a loi 1901 association, private and independent, which has perpetuated for centuries the tradition of compagnonnage: the tour de France of apprentices, the transmission from master to companion, the requirement of the chef-d'œuvre. Their independence is their strength and their credibility. The aim is not to integrate them into the EPNP nor to bring them under State control: that would be to kill what makes them irreplaceable.
The partnership rests on a simple logic: the State creates the framework, guarantees outlets and finances training; the Compagnons train according to their own methods and transmit according to their living tradition. The EPNP finances apprenticeship places on heritage sites, opens its monuments as training grounds and official stages of the tour de France, grants preferential contracts to referenced companion craftspeople and integrates the best among them as permanent salaried workers. In return, the Compagnons train according to traditional compagnonnage methods, transmit rare savoir-faire threatened with disappearance, certify skills recognized by the EPNP and contribute their expertise on period techniques.
The central idea is simple: the EPNP's worksites become official stages of the compagnons' tour de France. An apprentice stone cutter completing their tour de France passes through Notre-Dame, through the château de Versailles, through the cathedral of Reims. They work there under the direction of an experienced companion, on materials and techniques that exist nowhere else. What this produces for the apprentice: training on the most demanding materials there are, with constraints of precision and respect for the existing fabric that surpass anything an ordinary worksite can offer. What this produces for heritage: a regular flow of young professionals trained in the specific techniques of each monument, who then feed into the permanent body of the EPNP or establish themselves as referenced craftspeople. Savoir-faire no longer disappears between two worksites: it is kept permanently alive.
Video Games - National Culture and Vector of Values
Video games today constitute a central vector of cultural diffusion and values, massively influencing youth. The aim is not to regard them as mere leisure: they are a tool of cultural and narrative transmission, capable of teaching history, valorizing heritage, developing strategic thinking and creativity. Encouraging the production of French video games, anchored in national history, geography and culture, allows France's voice to be carried on global platforms, while forming critical audiences conscious of their heritage.
Through this dual movement - rigorous teaching of essential knowledge and incarnated practice of national culture, including modern media such as video games - youth is prepared to become responsible, autonomous and proud of their nation, capable of understanding and defending their cultural identity in a globalized world.