ADVERTISEMENTFollowing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcoming plans to air Netflix’s hit show Adolescence in secondary schools, France is following suit, with French Minister of Education Élisabeth Borne stating yesterday that the mini-series will be screened from secondary school level upwards.
In an interview for LCI news channel, Borne explained that the producer of the series “gave us the rights” and that the Ministry of Education was therefore going to “offer five educational sequences for young people based on this series”.
These extracts from Adolescence, which have already been shown in British schools to stimulate debate and try to “prevent young boys from being dragged into a whirlpool of hatred and misogyny,” are “very representative of the violence that can exist among young people”, according to Borne.
The aim is to help raise awareness of the problem of “overexposure to screens and the trivialisation of violence on these social networks,” as well as the spread of masculinist theories and misogyny, argues Borne.
The four-part series follows how a father deals with the fallout of his 13-year-old son being suspected of stabbing one of his classmates to death.
Beyond the spot-on acting, the show has felt like a cultural wake-up call, as it has prompted a wider discussion about toxic masculinity and the devastating influence of the so-called ‘manosphere’ on young minds who are faced with websites and online forums promoting misogyny and ultra-conservative models of masculinity that flirt with far-right ideologies.
When it was confirmed that Netflix would be making the series available to all UK secondary schools, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote a column for the Daily Mail saying that he didn’t see the good in the initiative, calling the show “tosh”.
He wrote: “In making this announcement with full prime ministerial authority amid the ancient solemnity of the cabinet room, Keir Starmer has perfectly encapsulated the fundamental flatulence of the government, and its emetic finger-wagging mixture of humbug and wokery.”
Johnson went on to say that he believes the move to show the series in school time demonstrates the government’s “cruel indifference to the real educational needs of children today,” adding: “In case you haven’t watched Adolescence I can save you the bother. It’s tosh – well-acted tosh.”
Predictably, Johnson also introduced race to his argument, saying that “unlike the teenage couple in this drama, the victims and perpetrators are disproportionately young black males.”
The show’s co-creator Jack Thorne has already spoken out on this theory, saying, “It’s absurd to say that (knife crime) is only committed by black boys. It’s not true and history shows a lot of cases of kids from all races committing these crimes.” Thorne also stated that the goal of the show was not about “making a point about race” but to make a point “about masculinity.”
“We’re trying to get inside a problem,” he added. “We’re not saying this is one thing or another, we’re saying that this is about boys.”
The decision to show the series in French schools comes after Laëtitia Curetti, who has a 13-year-old son, wrote to Borne and launched an online petition to have the series shown in secondary schools across France. Curetti stated she believes the series could be an “excellent educational tool” to raise awareness of the dangers of social networking, sexism, bullying and violence in schools.
The discussion surrounding knife crime has increased since the success of the series in France. It has been further amplified after a 16-year-old stabbed a high school student to death and injured three other fellow students at the lycée Notre-Dame de Toutes Aides in Nantes on 24 April.
“My thoughts go out first to the teenager who lost her life, to the three students who were injured, and I want to express all my support and solidarity to these victims, their families and their loved ones,” declared Borne at the school, before paying tribute to the “establishment staff who intervened and neutralized the attacker.”
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau spoke of “a tragedy that rocks us.” He said he was “appalled” and “shocked” by “the violence that has been unleashed,” before adding that the tragic incident was “not a mere news item but a societal issue.”
