A female author has been included in the list of compulsory study books for France’s prestigious literature baccalauréat for the first time since the modern-day exam was introduced more than 20 years ago, reports The Guardian.
The move follows petitions protesting about sexism and an “excess of testosterone” in the exam syllabus.
From September, final year lycée students taking their exams in 2018 will be required to have studied La Princesse de Montpensier, a 17th-century court romance written by Madame de Lafayette, as well as a 2010 film of the book by director Bertrand Tavernier.
Lafayette is included in the list of obligatory study under the category literature and the language of images.
The French baccalauréat has taught in various forms since the Middle Ages, when the Université de Paris – whose most famous college was the Sorbonne – was set up in the 13th century. The modern exam was introduced in the 1990s; the literature option (bac L) was established in 1995 but has ignored female writers until now.
Lafayette’s inclusion is the result of a 2016 petition set up by Françoise Cahen, who teaches at a lycée in Alfortville, south-east Paris.
“We’re not asking for parity between male and female artists, we would just like the great female writers such as Marguerite Duras, Mme de Lafayette, Annie Ernaux, Marguerite Yourcenar, Nathalie Sarraute, Simone de Beauvoir, George Sand, Louise Labé … are also regularly the subject of study for our students.
“In classes where there is often a majority of girls and the teachers are mostly women, what subliminal message are we sending?” Cahen asked.
She pointed out that two years ago a lycée student had set up her own petition to protest against the “latent sexism” in the school study programmes, and that the writers she proposed to study instead were not “especially interesting just because they are women, but because they are worth studying for the importance they have brought to literature and society”.