Report highlights discrimination against Travellers

A largely overlooked report by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights in June drew strong attention to the widespread discrimination and racism affecting the Travellers, with two-thirds of the French perceiving them as "different." Meanwhile, the RIPOST law passed in July strengthened repressive measures to expedite the evictions of illegal Traveller camps, even as a third of the municipalities still fail to meet their obligations regarding welcoming areas.

Historical schooling policies for Traveller children

Theoretically, the children of Travellers have been subject to general schooling laws since 1881, without specific measures other than legislation from the 1910s updated in the late 1960s which focused on controlling schooling through repressive measures in case of absenteeism, for example through the cancellation of parental allocations. However, in the 1970s, the purely repressive approach gradually gave way with the establishment of a few specific classes for the adaptation of Traveller children.

Progress in Traveller education

Still in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s, associations and militant educators began to organize informal schooling networks on camps, notably through school buses, sometimes with financial assistance from the National Education. But it was mainly from the Besson laws of 2000 that required municipalities and departments to structure the reception of non-sedentary populations, and with the laws of 2002 and 2012 on the schooling of Traveller children that the situation undoubtedly improved.

Persistent educational challenges

Despite this, today, 35% of Traveller children are still not yet schooled at 6 years old and only 15% will obtain a diploma, compared to 90% of the general population. "When one knows that the diploma is a major determinant for obtaining a CDI, it is difficult under these conditions to get out of precariousness, poverty and black market work, difficult also to defend the idea of a school that allows a relative social promotion when a large majority of Traveller children stop at the end of secondary school," recalls a professor working with this population.

Support structures for Traveller education

To carry out the educational goals concerning Traveller children, each Academy has a small service managed by the CASNAV and in each department, an Inspector specifically follows these issues and coordinates the actions by relying on a network of a few specialized teachers. These last ones are in charge of meeting the itinerant families, accompanying them in administrative procedures, occasionally taking charge of students in schools, managing the link with the many interlocutors (social assistance, municipalities, National Education, departmental councils and inter-municipal communities ...) and providing resources and support to teachers who have these children in their classes.

Deterioration of educational support

That is the principles, but in reality, since 2022 the situation has deteriorated, adapted education having largely been the subject of cuts voted by the Macronists and their allies from the right, in a context of budget austerity and a race to the truffle with the RN who has long surfed on latent anti-Tsiganism. Cuts then willingly validated at the Ministry and transposed on the ground, the school difficulty groups attracting much less attention than city center classes without a teacher or threatened with closure and which can count on parents who know how to mobilize, mediate actions and activate their networks among the elected to obtain a small extension.

Stereotypes and communalism

In Indre-et-Loire, there is no longer an Inspector in charge of the schooling of Traveller children, each Inspector of the district has taken over the file, among the dozens of others to be handled, further increasing the delirious workload of these intermediate officials of the National Education. The primary teachers, on the other hand, are gradually sidelined, no longer being invited to certain meetings, while the institution tries to transform their missions to move them away from contact with families, for example by asking them not to go to the camps, the ball being returned to the collectivities in charge of managing the reception areas.

Registration challenges for Traveller families

Some also point out the multiplication of cases where the services of the city halls or inter-municipal communities show bad will when registering Traveller children for primary school. Thus, witnesses from the east of Touraine affirm that "they ask families for unnecessary papers or refuse registration for a document deficiency, which is contrary to the basic principles. They direct them to another commune, they drag their feet to respond or study the file, they sometimes recommend going to another reception area because the school nearby would be better, or they assure the Traveller families that if the commune does not have an area it does not have to school their children - which is false -."

Institutional shortcomings in secondary education

Other times, it is the institution itself, too bureaucratic, that undermines the devices. In Loir-et-Cher, with patchy funding and the goodwill of a few motivated teachers, the only secondary school in the department that welcomes Traveller children had set up a device that was working quite well and that is also found elsewhere - the "Manouche classes" in jargon. However, the project was not in line with the philosophy of "Inclusive School" and in 2024, the device was dismantled: specific means allocated decreased and the coordinator position was eliminated, eliminating the clearly identified interlocutor for parents.

Administrative barriers for Traveller families

The administration of the National Education is all the more rigid as several departmental directorates operate in so-called degraded mode, that is, in chronic understaffing. The procedures for registering students also suffer from inertia and it is necessary for Traveller families and social workers to insist heavily for the children to be registered, the phenomenon having worsened with the generalization of administrative dematerialization since some families in caravans do not have access to the Internet, others sometimes have only difficulties with writing.

Primary school challenges in Indre-et-Loire

This context is also observed in primary schools in Indre-et-Loire: "we find ourselves more and more with very heterogeneous classes to manage several levels at the same time, with allophone students who do not master French, children with dys- who sometimes, but not always, have an accompanying person with them, as well as Traveller children. All that without specific training and for 2,000 euros per month at the start of the career. And without mentioning the administrative tasks and the increasing number of meetings with the obligation to produce Personalized Educational Success Plans for all students with specific needs in our classes. Sometimes, it concerns a dozen children per class!" testifies a primary school teacher from the east of Touraine.

Traveller perspectives on schooling

Interrogated, a Traveller from the south of Touraine provides some nuances: "I have noticed that since the 2000s, the situation has improved in the area. Before there was a class for Travellers but few families sent their children. Now they are mixed with the other children and almost all the people on the area where I stay have enrolled their children. The school is very good, really, the teachers are doing a good job. The real problem here is that there are not enough places for everyone on the areas because the Department does not respect its obligations at all, some families move quite a bit or end up on illegal camps and there it is more difficult to obtain a certificate that allows having a place at school."

Unsanitary living conditions

Because the entire schooling issue for Travellers is also to be related to the state of the reception areas, generally unsanitary, located in places that are unworthy and always isolated and poorly served by public transport, making the journey from home to school very complicated, explaining also a presence of families in a dotted line on a commune because they leave as soon as a better opportunity for a camp appears to them. Social workers in Eure-et-Loir even speak of "real rural shantytowns," for example at Auneau, "with pauperized Travellers living next to a dump, among rats, with a few construction toilets for dozens of people." Or at Maintenon where the area is lost in the woods and borders wild camps without toilets.

Complexities in Traveller schooling

There are also many other "holes in the net of schooling," as a primary school teacher confesses: for example, the issue of Travellers living on lands they own and who are poorly identified by the National Education services, or the families living on makeshift camps not detected - this is the case for dozens of children in the Lochois according to some estimates. "The institutions do not know the complexity of the situations, the tensions between families that can lead to departures from an area and a break in schooling; the cases of expulsions from an area because the father or older brother committed a crime, but with very concrete effects on the schooling of the children; the examples of areas closed during the school year for repairs or maintenance, forcing families to move and change schools," clarifies a professional in contact with Travellers.

Institutional failures and frustrations

"And while this, rather than working on the reception master plan which is their competence but is failing, the Departmental Council of Indre-et-Loire is setting up reciprocal commitment contracts, conditioning the payment of the RSA to Traveller parents by the registration of their children in school (…) We sabotage the work of the people on the ground, the decisions are made without consulting us, by technocrats who think they know everything and who mainly think about their career by validating unrealistic budgets. We are flooded with emails and procedures, with the feeling of being looked down upon and ultimately considered as slackers," gets angry another social worker. "In Eure-et-Loire we are gradually conforming to the law. In Auneau six housing units for Travellers are being built and Chartres is in line. Well, it's true that in the Dreux area, there is a problem," clarifies another professional.

Concerns for the future

We can see, bad winds are blowing on the basic principles of school for all. And a few months before the presidential election which may see the far-right victorious, there is really cause for concern for the rights of marginalized populations and victims of discrimination and hate speech, rights already in decline for 10 years.