Date: Fri, 22 Apr 94 12:04:46 +0200
From: moyen@clipper.ens.fr (Jean-Francois Moyen)
To: macman@bernina.ethz.ch
Subject : French scouting history


There are many historical reasons for the plurality of the French
scouting organizations, besides the French tradition of creating
different and concurrent organization as soon as you don't agree with
the "mainstream".

Scouting first arrived in France through YMCA, in early 1910's. The
association founded at that time was called the "Eclaireurs de France".
It was an organization with predominantly protestant members, with
little religious activity (In France, protestants form about 1% of the
total population, and tend to be more "progressist" than catholics. So
it was no wonder that the first French scouts were more or less laics of
protestant origin). The catholic church, running  its own youth movement
at that time, refused and even fought scoutism.

In the 20's, however, a catholic priest (whose name I don't remember...)
adapted scoutism to catholicism. It's funny to notice that
traditionalistic scouts in France, which claim to do "as BP has done ",
use this "adaptation" instead. This was the base for the "Scouts de
France", which grew continually until the upcoming World War II.

At the same time, the protestant groups of EdF left the organization and
founded the "Federation des Eclaireuses unionistes / Eclaireurs
unionistes de France" (resp. girls and boys). Only laics remained in
EdF. EdF were strongly influenced by non-scout summer camps (what we
call "colonies de vacances"), and influenced them in return, through the
"CEMEA" project (Centres d'Entrainement aux Methodes d'Education
Active). I don't remember when EIF was founded, I suppose they left EdF
around the same time as FEU/EUF did.

The 5 movements (GdF had been founded in parallel to SdF) made up
"Scoutisme Francais" to represent them at international scale. And then
the war came...

The Vichy regime and the Nazi occupants forbade scouting and set up
their own movements instead. Scout leaders had various reactions, from
switching to the new movements to joining the french "Resistance"
(french guerrillas fighting the occupants). But at the liberation, most
people were very cautious and afraid of anything looking like a youth
"enrollment", especially if it had a "military" look.

This was very bad for scouting, which lost a large number of people in
the 50's. So all five groups began to rewrite their pedagogy in order to
adapt it to the new times. EdF, having already initiated this process,
went ever further (they were mixed since '49 !!) and lost most of their
"scout" identity. FEU, EUF and EIF were small enough to cope with the
evolution : their "home community" was small and people had no other
place to go. On the protestant side, EUF had played a role in the
Resistance and could take advantage of  their good public image.

Things were not so easy for the catholics, though. Their movement was
big and badly shaken by the war. In fact, it was big enough to allow
very diverging opinions inside it. Maybe catholics are less tolerant to
differences than protestants, at least in France. Well, nevertheless,
the "new pedagogy" of the 50's wasn't agreed by everyone, resulting in
two following scissions: the "ultra traditionalists" formed the SUF, the
"ultra religious" joined the FSE.

The next step came in 1968, and its subsequent "disorder" in France. But
it was also a large change in the french society and mentality. Once
again, in the, letŐs say, 'anarchist' wave of these time, the scouting
movement had a really, really bad public image of a paramilitary,
authoritarian, religiously strict organization (image coming, btw,
widely from SUF/FSE). Scouting movements had either to change or die.

Some new groups appeared at that time (Eclaireurs neutres, etc.). SdF
and GdF rewrote their pedagogy in the 70's. Those who didn't agree
joined SUF/FSE.

FEU and EUF merged in 71, forming the FEEUF. Then, using ideas from SdF
and CEMEA, as well as an extensive pedagogical reflexion, they built up
a new organization, better adapted to the requirements of the modern
society. The organization, which keeps lot of folklore and so, is built
around "projects" (Each unit has a project : the key is that this allows
the child to take responsibility, etc.). This lead to angry internal
fights, which raged from 77 (first appearance of the "new pedagogy" to
today. It also caused a dramatic decrease of membership. Now,
traditionalists and progressists seem to have reached a settlement, with
most of the traditionalists having aged and left the movement, and the
progressist accepting to come back on certain highly debated points
(such as the uniform, which was at the edge of disappearance in the mid
80's).

EdF had already made their changes, and kept evolving since that time.
They encountered difficulties, because they were neither 'real scouts'
nor 'colonies de vacances'.

EIF built up its new pedagogy around jewish traditions, without major
opposition.

SUF and FSE, of course, didn't evolve.

Other groups appeared at that time, generally either from 'left wing'
adaptation of scouting (ENF, 'Scouts ecologistes'), or from
traditionalistic, if not reactionary religious groups (such as St
Georges, Evangile)

Here's the long, complicated story of french scouting...