Far right and left challengers to Angers mayor office didn't miss Tomboy

Le thème de l'éducation apparaît dans la campagne électorale. Christophe Béchu, le candidat de l'opposition, a indiqué qu'il réétudierait l'application à Angers des nouveaux rythmes scolaires introduits par l'actuelle majorité, sous la direction de Luc Belot. Au même moment, la projection à des collégiens angevins de Tomboy, l'histoire d'un garçon manqué, a été annulée par leurs écoles. Les réactions à cette décision sont assez tranchées à l'extrême-droite et à l'extrême-gauche. 

The education issues are starting to appear in the municipal campaign. The reform of the scholar schedules worked out by the French government was implemented in Angers under the leadership of Luc Belot, deputy-mayor and socialist member of parliament. Christophe Béchu, candidate to Angers mayor office and himself conservative member of parliament, promised that he will set up, if elected, a conference about the topic. "It can't be said that the scholar rythms reform was a great achivement", he said. But another event  recently contributed to shoot out education at the top of the electoral agenda.

Three Angers private colleges have planned to send their pupils to watch "Tomboy". That (French) movie (whose title is in English) tells the story of a 10-year-old girl who, after moving with her family to a new neighborhood, dresses as a boy and introduces herself to new friends. But the screening of the film, which is supposed to explore themes of ambiguous sexuality, intervenes in the middle of a quarrel between French left and right political parties about a gender theory. According to that theory, the sexual identity of individuals is both the result of biological differences and of social as cultural constructions.

Given that political background, three Angers colleges choose to cancel the screening of Tomboy for its secondary-school students. The Angers members of the La manif pour tous movement, opposed to the law opening the wedding to persons of the same sex, published in its website their fierce objection to Tomboy screening, pointing out that the lesbian and gay lobbies was intending to break the familly structure through "the minds jamming of our children".

On the far-left and far-right challengers made of course different comments about the college decision. The first "Angers résister, construire à gauche" firmly "blamed" them while the Front national brought its "total support" to the managers of the colleges getting, with that event, an opportunity to get themselves talked about. Until now, other challengers stayed apart from that polemic. But for how long?