Benjamin Peter (in Toulouse), edited by Julien Moreau 06:11, February 03, 2023

The French feel that their relationship to general culture has been declining for many years, according to an Ifop study, and the level of French students is falling.

Does this observation mean that the Age of Enlightenment is becoming a distant memory for these young people?

Europe 1 takes stock.

A general culture in decline?

A study by Ifop has indicated that half of the population believes that the French today have less knowledge and knowledge than 50 years ago.

If the results of the pupils at the end of the elementary school have progressed for five years, they are still insufficient, reported the Ministry of National Education.

Barely one in two pupils can read a text with ease and the degradation of spelling has become worrying. 

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Some confuse the Lights... to the Lumière brothers

Following this observation, Europe 1 went to Occitania, to meet Toulouse high school students, to find out more about their knowledge of a very specific theme: the spirit of the Enlightenment.

Some still confuse Diderot, Rousseau and Voltaire with the Lumière brothers, inventors of cinema.

For others, the social contract and the spirit of the laws still has meaning: "For me, the spirit of the Enlightenment is like a reform of the spirit of society. I am thinking of the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert. These people had understood that knowledge was a big key to understanding what was happening around us", explained Elisa.

"This is the beginning of freedom"

"It evokes the evolution of the way of thinking. The evolution of the condition of women too. Olympe de Gouges, who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens, was greatly inspired by the thought of the Enlightenment", summed up Maël.

Some students rave about these 18th century intellectuals, but many find the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment out of step with the times.

"It's the beginning of freedom in itself, but times have changed," tempers a high school student.

"Freedom, as it was in the Age of Enlightenment, if put on now it would be perceived as very authoritarian."