Document type: news item from the Fondation Droit Animal, Ethique et Sciences
Author: Léa Le Faucheur
Preview: A new moral and civic education (EMC) curriculum was published in France on June 13, 2024, following a stakeholder consultation phase overseen by the French Ministry of Education. The LFDA had responded to the consultation, pointing out that awareness-raising modules on respect for pets required by the 2021 law against animal abuse had still not become part of the curriculum. The final version of the curriculum has now been amended to include a reference to animal ethics.
Animal ethics enters the curriculum
This is a welcome step forward. The EMC program for children entering their first year of education (CP), which will come into effect at the start of the 2024 school year, has been expanded to include a learning pathway on "Addressing the issue of the respect due to companion animals" as part of the "Collective rules and autonomy" competency. In this keystage, teachers are more broadly invited to introduce pupils "to the distinction between personal and collective ownership" and to help them "understand the respect that is due to the environment and to living beings, from spaces within the home to the more distant spaces involving the common good". The curriculum also indicates that the first year in school constitutes a stage in the reinforcement of "first steps in developing the respect owed to others and learning to live in society". Animal ethics is thus employed more as a gateway to the acquisition of essential psychosocial and prosocial skills that benefit both humans and other animals. [...]The goal has yet to be achieved
This module mentions only companion animals (as required by law) and includes them in the concept of "common goods". This reinforces the way in which animals are already presented in other taught subjects. They are thus either considered solely in their relationship with humans as part of a utilitarian vision, or, conversely, as part of the greater whole of "Adaptation of the animal to the environment". This approach reinforces an anthropocentric vision of animals and fails to allow us an apprehension of human-animal relations on a comprehensive ethical and scientific basis, in contrast to the content of the Declaration of Animal Rights, for example. In practice, we could look on this module as an opportunity to invite students to go beyond these concepts and address what also makes the animal an individual. Here, indeed, not only does the curriculum encourage children to learn more about their own individuality, but the closeness they feel with the pets around them, who are generally treated as full-fledged family members, can help them identify the interests of their companions.
Conversely, in subsequent years of education, an awareness of respect for animals is not as clearly included in the EMC program. Animals are mentioned for students as they begin to move towards the Baccalaureat, but in order to illustrate one form of civic engagement (in this case, animal welfare activists), and, a year later, in the context of environmental law and the status of animals as "objects of law".
It should be remembered that the French Education Code specifies that EMC modules devoted to raising awareness of respect for animals must "present companion animals as sentient beings and contribute to the prevention of all acts of animal abuse" (Article L312-15). As matters stand, this goal has not yet been achieved. We shall have to await the next curriculum update (the last one was in 2019) to fulfil any hope that it might comply with the essence of the law.
