In Belgium, the Evras program is subject to a wave of disinformation from conservative and radical religious circles, whether Muslim or Catholic. Protests reminiscent of those experienced ten years ago in France against the ABCD of Equality.
“Don’t touch our children”, “Our children are innocent”, “No sexuality before puberty”… these slogans written on signs by “anti-Evras” demonstrators in Brussels during a rally on September 30 have made the headlines in the Belgian and French-speaking media in recent weeks. On September 7, a decree passed in the Parliament of Wallonia and Brussels to provide secondary school students with an Evras course (Education for relational, emotional and sexual life) twice for two hours per year. Schools were burned down in early September in the Charleroi and Liège regions.
“This decree is the target of rumors against a backdrop of conspiracy theories”, estimates Rudy Reichstadt. What does the rumor say? That we are going “teach masturbation to children, broadcast pornographic content to them, encourage them to touch each other and even legitimize pedophiliahe continues. The bottom line of conspiracy theory, strictly speaking, is that all of this would be decided by the famous globalist elites who want to enslave us. We heard Alain Escada, of the Civitas party – which has just been dissolved in the council of ministers – explain that Evras corresponded to the establishment of a ‘new sexual world order’.”
“Have there been real slip-ups linked to Evras such as those denounced? No: everything denounced here is rumor.”
Rudy Reichstadtat franceinfo
THE “great paradoxnotes Rudy Reichstadt, is that these awareness modules on relational and sexual life aim in particular to prevent sexual abuse and that they are accused of the opposite.”
The ABCDs of equality, the French echo
In June 2014 in France, National Education gave up on generalizing the ABCDs of equality, initially launched in September 2013. This operation aimed to fight against girl-boy stereotypes and therefore inequalities. But the initiative was contested: a movement was then created, the school withdrawal days (JRE). He accuses the program of promoting “gender theory” in schools and indoctrinating children. “We see very well what this type of speech can lead to: it can lead to real endangerment of teaching staffnotes Tristan Mendès France. We were there in 2013, we have the same thing today in 2023.”
“From the Evras law to the ABCDs of equality: when conspiracists attack schools”, this is the 53rd episode of Complorama with Rudy Reichstadt, director of Conspiracy Watch, and Tristan Mendès France, lecturer and member of the conspiracy observatory, specialist in digital cultures. A podcast to be found on the franceinfo website, the Radio France application and several other platforms such as Apple podcasts, Podcast Addict, Spotify, or Deezer.