| This thesis examines the private versus public school debate that took place in France when the Socialists came to power in 1981. The Minister of Education Alain Savary attempted to find a compromise between his party's insistence on a unified and secular system of education, no longer subsidizing private education, and the Catholic's position favouring state aid to private education while allowing some freedom of education. Savary's failure to achieve his objective, largely because the Socialist deputies in the National Assembly sabotaged his delicate compromise, led to the fall of the Mauroy government in 1984. The compromise Savary was seeking and failed to obtain was one in which the public and private (Catholic) schools would coexist, as they do today, with private schools depending heavily on state aid to survive while being subject to considerable state control.; This thesis analyzes the origin and development of the private and public school debate from Napoleon to Mitterrand, the complex interplay of forces within the Socialist government and in private education, and the events leading to the withdrawal of the bill in 1984. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
