Représentations de la Révolution française dans les établissements scolaires de l’académie de Versailles lors du Bicentenaire Mobilisations, pratiques, bilans

The bicentennial of the French Revolution was commemorated in many high schools and middle schools in the Versailles School District, well outside the scope of the official celebrations. Nearly 100 000 students and 3 000 teachers took part in pluridisciplinary workshops about the Revolutionary decade. Researchers generated plays based on local history as well as adaptations of the 1789 ideals of human rights to contemporary issues. Far from the auspicious media coverage of the bicentennial, students, dressed as “sans-culottes”, planted liberty trees and put on plays mixing art, pedagogy and history to celebrate the ideals of the Revolution and of the First Republic.