2023-11-29 19:00:00
As the Children’s Book and Press Fair opens today, it is an opportunity to recall the extent to which the mysterious commission for monitoring and controlling publications intended for children and adolescents is rickety. Near ActuaLitté, a former member speaks of a “meeting of jerks”.
Little known to the general public, this 74-year-old institution is the result of Law No. 49-956 of July 16, 1949 on publications intended for young people, stipulating in particular that texts “must not include any illustration, no story, no Time.news, no section, no insertion presenting in a favorable light banditry, lies, theft, laziness, cowardice, hatred, debauchery or any qualified acts [de] crimes or misdemeanors, or of a nature to demoralize childhood or youth.”
Today, it is included in the Ministry of the Interior and is responsible for rereading youth publications (books and press) in order to detect possible dangerous comments: incitement to hatred, attacks on human dignity, pornography, etc. . She can report them to Beauvau, but not censor directly.
For this, as explained News the commission is made up of 16 members with deliberative votes:
President David Moreau (also a member of the Council of State) Four representatives of the Ministries of Culture, National Education, Justice and the Interior Two representatives of public and private education staff Four publishers of publications (not necessarily youth) Two cartoonists and authors A representative of youth organizations A parent, designated by the National Union of Family Associations An honorary magistrate having sat in children’s courts.
+ Ten rapporteurs, without deliberative voice, who produce reports on the publications entrusted to them.
All these little people are supposed to meet at least once a quarter to discuss publications deemed problematic and to discuss their legitimacy, their interest, their risks… Let’s admit that with some 18,000 titles per year, it’s not a sinecure.
The problem is that the members of this commission are absolutely not required to be experts in the matter. As ActuaLitté points out, they “do not take any assessment on their mastery of reading or their ability to understand a text, satire, parody or irony”. Even more, some easily admit that they do not have time to read all the texts entrusted to them. So, in meetings (when they show up), they don’t bother with comments. Often, only one person has read the text better than diagonally and the others follow in a reflex of sheeplike mimicry.
It’s all this that makes a former member say that “people imagine a meeting of experts” when “that has nothing to do with it, it’s a meeting of jerks.”
Recently, this is the case of the work “Bien trop petit” by Manu Causse which sparked controversy. The latter tells the story of a young man frustrated by the appearance of his penis, who tries to unwind by clumsily writing pornographic stories. These are passages from the latter which were considered too crude by the commission (at least by one of its members). The problem is that the rest of the story shows that the young man himself understands the awkwardness of his words, the problems that these stories cause and their harmful nature. It would therefore seem that reading the story to the end is relevant to judging the work, but that not everyone bothers to do so at the commission.
In response to this decision, which is only the straw that broke the camel’s back, the French Librairie Union and the National Edition Union expressed their doubts concerning the legitimacy of the commission and their desire to “revisit” this system.
Besides that, it is the terrible Mortèle Adèle who has been made a heroine of youth in recent years, notably through the event “Leaving in Book” of 2023. One wonders if it is education that takes precedence when we talk about children, but since it is the control commission that depends on the Ministry of the Interior… we have some answers.
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