Back to school. Fanfan, the only girl in a class of boys, the story of mixed school

Her name is Françoise. It is 1955 in a school in Haute-Vienne. “Fanfan at the boys’ school”, an archive sequence that says a lot about the evolution of mixed classes. This is the spotlight of NoA Histoire on the occasion of the start of the school year.

With the start of the school year and the return to school of young and old, why not try to understand what has changed between the school of our grandparents or great-grandparents and the school of today?

As a common thread, and thanks to the Cinémathèque de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, let’s get to know Fanfan. His father, Roger Breillout, was born in 1918 in the south-east of Haute-Vienne. He was a schoolteacher in Saint-Bonnet-Briance and Linares and he filmed many images of the school world. Among the preserved documents, “Fanfan at the boys’ school“.

Fanfan, whose real name is Françoise, is the schoolteacher’s daughter.

It’s 1955, diversity has not become widespread, it will rather happen in the 60s, before becoming general in the 70s. And by filming this, he is almost committing a militant act.

Patrick Malefond

director of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Cinematheque.

When we see this little Fanfan, in the 50s, almost alone among the boys, which was quite rare, we cannot help but remember that co-education has long been perceived as threatening traditional roles. In any case, it was linked to a conception of society that has evolved.

“Today, we hear some people asking questions about this mix. In reality, there is perhaps indeed a militant act on the part of the master filmmaker, who, through this staging, shows the presence of this little girl. We see a diligent little girl, a little girl who works“, analysis Maryan Lemoine, lecturer in Educational and Training Sciences.

1963. Fanfan has grown up. She is at the Renoir high school in Limoges. An establishment that has just been built. This young girl, who is entering boarding school, benefits from all the education that her father has given her in previous years. Five years before 1968, these are probably the beginnings of the emancipation of young people, through militant acts of popular education.

Fanfan, the daughter of a schoolteacher, also offers the possibility of considering higher education, at least up to high school and beyond, because she comes from the National Education system.

Maryan Lemoine

Lecturer in Educational and Training Sciences

But this move to boarding school remains a woman’s affair. The mother, the grandmother. It is a return to school that involves three generations in tasks that remain domestic, such as putting away the trousseau or making the bed.

As for Fanfan’s father, Roger Breillout, his name may not have gone down in history, but his work as an amateur filmmaker deserves to be recognized. For Patrick Malefond, “We must pay tribute to these people who contributed, in their own way, to democratization, to diversity, to this work on popular education, education in rural areas. This film is clearly both from a formal and substantive point of view completely in tune with French society at the time.” This film is a valuable testimony to the 50s and 60s, marking the transition to modernity.

Find on France.tv “School through the ages”, an issue of NoA Histoire presented by Vanessa Finot, with Patrick Malefond, director of the Cinémathèque Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Maryan Lemoine, Lecturer in Educational and Training Sciences and the journalist Jean-Martial Jonquard