French press review 20 August 2013

Left-wing daily Libération comes back on a summer of weddings, three months after the French Parliament adopted the marriage equality bill. According to the paper, hundreds of gay marriages have been conducted this summer in France.

"And the Pride March became the wedding march", headlines the daily. With different portraits of this summer’s brides and grooms, Libération shows just how simply and easily the bill was applied and shows how, contrary to all of the anti-gay marriage opposition, these weddings were as normal as they come, and didn’t tear the fabric of society or destroy the sanctity of marriage.

This bill will reduce the hierarchy between straight and gay couples and level a lot of inequalities, says Wilfried Rault, a sociologist interviewed by the paper. Those who, only months ago, were marching against the marriage equality are preparing to protest against what they perceive as a new threat.

Today’s right-wing Le Figaro reports on the attack led by the supporters of the “gender theory”. A report published by the National Education Ministry calls for "the deconstruction of gender stereotypes" in elementary school, reports the paper.

Starting this fall, 500 schools will implement the new official directive from the ministry, which aims at providing education to girls and boys regardless of their gender. Studies show that the notion of gender inequalities appear at a young age and are often emphasized by the teaching staff’s attitude, which tend to generally encourage boys to develop their cognitive skills and girls their “positive attitudes”, reports Le Figaro.

But Jean-Luc Auduc, former director of the National Teacher’s Training School, interviewed by the paper, says that this ideological vision is bound to fail and trying to cancel the differences between boys and girls will only accentuate stereotypes.

And staying with back to school news, the popular daily Aujourd’hui en France publishes its traditional “How much is your kid’s schoolbag going to cost you” edition.

Every year, the daily tackles the issue and gives advices on how to save money on back-to-school supplies. According to Aujourd’hui en France’s calculations, an elementary school student will cost 98 euros in stationary, while parents for a secondary school student will have to pay 136 euros to buy their kid’s yearly supplies.