Contents
A look back at the Baby-Loup affair
Of the Baby-Loup crèche created in 1991 in Chanteloup-Les-Vignes (78), the general public essentially only knows the legal standoff that began five years ago with one of its former employees, Fatima. She was fired in 2008 when she decided to wear the chador within the structure, in defiance of the rule of neutrality enacted by the internal regulations. Since then, this affair has become a symbol of recurrent debates on secularism and the dangers of religious radicalization. In “how the veil fell on the crèche”, Caroline Eliacheff, child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, recounts the insidious hold of fundamentalism but also traces the heyday and the fight of Baby-Loup for the rights of women and the development of children . They are, she writes, “the silent heroes and forgotten victims of the ‘Baby-Loup affair’”.
Baby-Loup, the three-star welcome
The first virtue of Caroline Eliacheff’s book, even before constituting an implacable chronology of facts, lies in an equally salutary reminder: the Baby-Loup crèche, opened in Chanteloup-les-Vignes in 1991 by and for the women of the neighborhood, is (was?) an exemplary structure when it comes to welcoming the little one. However, as the author’s intention is to bring the child back to the heart of the matter, this is a crucial fact. “Beyond the veil business, what is interesting is that all nurseries should function like Baby-Loup,” says Caroline Eliacheff. Not necessarily in the sense of being open 7 days a week and 7 hours a day, but from the point of view of professional practices. According to my observations, it happens that certain structures offer a high quality reception. But it is exceptional. Often the directors lead little. Initial employee training is insufficient and continuing education is far too scarce. Employees generally like their job, they chose it, but they are poorly paid and receive training that does not allow them to treat children other than with reference to their own education. On the other hand, at Baby-Loup, training is permanent, the employees are asked to reflect on the reflections made to the children all day long. The crèche regularly offers study days. ” Children are welcomed at Baby-Loup at any time of the day or night, sometimes in an emergency, but they are always received in good conditions and by very competent professionals. Another strength of the structure rarely highlighted: its social mix. Located in the heart of a so-called “sensitive” district of Chanteloup-les-vignes, Baby-Loup nonetheless welcomes all socio-professional categories: the children of the city, in the first place, but also the babies of the parents. whose jobs and schedules are hardly compatible with traditional reception methods, lawyer, actor, flight attendant, etc.
Baby-Loup or the emancipation of women
Another more than relevant reminder in such a case: in 20 years, Baby-Loup (and its director Natalia Baleato) has done a lot for children but just as much for women. The structure was a formidable tool of emancipation for the mothers of the district, starting with the one who is at the origin of the legal torments of the crèche, Fatima. Encouraged by Natalia Baleato and the team of the structure, the young woman, initially only holding a CAP in sewing, will obtain a diploma of educator of young children, thus going from “bac-5 to bac + 3”. In a testimony recorded in 2007 by a psycho-sociologist, and taken up by Caroline Eliacheff in her book, Fatima recounted this pivotal moment in her life: “ Being away from home, three or four days a week, to take a competition, seemed to me an insurmountable difficulty. (…) My husband often agreed with me, or rather he was never able to agree with me. say no or oppose me. I went to Paris. I said to myself: you will not succeed, you are in check, you are the only Arab in the group, the only fat… I was used to my city. In the city, the difference can be seen very well. Elsewhere it was more difficult. I was the bearer of stigmata… I will not succeed… Finally, to my happiness and that of my colleagues, I passed my entrance examination. ” After Fatima, other women were trained and then hired by Baby-Loup. All the women in the neighborhood, first and foremost the mothers of the children received, have benefited from the support of the structure., as Caroline Eliacheff relates: ““ Every year in the spring, the group leaves for a whole weekend (without the children) in a lodge, accompanied by those in charge of the nursery and an external speaker to reflect on subjects such as “being a woman. today in the city and in the world ”, or“ the place of the father and that of the husband ”, or even“ communication within the couple and the family ”. One-week stays (with children) and some of the Baby-Loup staff, in the countryside or at Belle-Ile, are also organized, primarily (but not only) for single women. They do not have to prepare meals, can share fun and cultural activities with their children, compare lifestyles, learn and learn. ”
Baby-Loup against fundamentalists
Caroline Eliacheff recounts very well the undermining work carried out by religious fundamentalism against Baby-Wolf, the way in which radical Islam gradually crept into the smallest interstices, transforming this model crèche that made the people of the neighborhood proud into a citadel besieged. “When you don’t know what happened, you imagine the whole thing boils down to a woman who wanted to come back veiled after her parental leave,” laments Caroline Eliacheff. However, the most interesting, and the most astonishing, it is not so much the business of the veil, it is the religious entryism which preceded and accompanied it.. The wine vinegar that disappears from the cupboards, replaced by chemical vinegar, then the children’s plates adorned with little pigs that have also disappeared, the employees who put on sweaters under their blouses covering their hands, in the midst of the flu requiring washing of their hands. regular hands, an animator who refuses to take the children to the swimming pool then decides to only take care of the boys and no longer wants to shake hands with the women. Then some parents end up demanding that their children, Muslims, eat at a separate table. The only quality criterion required by these parents, notes Caroline Eliacheff, is respect for religious rules. “Mothers want to register their child, affirming during the interview, that” religion is a right “and have only one question:” what do the children eat “? “.
Bullying and abandonment
Over time, and with the first opinion of the Halde issued in 2010 proving the veiled employee was right, some of the parents became more and more demanding and the attacks from the outside became stronger and stronger. The author lists this pressure which is increasing. Women in chadors or niqabs are blocking registration hotlines to show that the neighborhood is watching Baby-Loup. Death threats against the nursery staff, damaged cars, insults, pressure on the employees of the structure when they do their shopping in the neighborhood … a professional ended up resigning, no longer able to bear to be taken to task by parents asking her to apply religious precepts in the nursery. For Caroline Eliacheff, Baby-Loup was literally abandoned by political and administrative authorities. Religious neutrality is, for example, a criterion required by CAF in the contracts it concludes with approved structures. Who heard CAF during the various trials? Some wanted to see in the Baby-Loup affair only a singular and local story. Like many others, writes Caroline Eliacheff, I see in it the symbol of the contradictions of French society, the cowardice of some and the courage of others. I also note, on the left, on the right, as at the level of the European authorities, the absence of a coherent policy which would intelligently and firmly oppose the underground project of the fundamentalists. ”
Baby-Loup: what now?
In March 2013 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment of the Versailles Court of Appeal, thus invalidating the dismissal of Fatima in 2008 by Natalia Baleato, the director, and referring the case to the Paris Court of Appeal. It must deliver its judgment on November 27. The Advocate General asked for confirmation of the dismissal. Whatever the outcome of this legal saga, cornered, faced with the hostility of part of the population, Baby-Loup will leave Chanteloup-Les-Vignes next December. The mayor of Conflans-Saint-Honorine offered to host the nursery but the Ile-de-France regional council says it cannot cover the moving costs.