In a middle school in the town of Thann in France’s Alsace region, a number of fourth-grade students refuse to attend swimming pretexting religious reasons. Their decision provokes a crisis which places the teachers in a tricky position, just two years after the assassination of Samuel Paty, a secondary school teacher killed on 16 Oct. 2020 by an Islamist terrorist.
What kind of support can the teachers rely on? How to enforce secularism?

The documentary film "The Factory of Secularism" immerses us day after day in the management of this crisis which is shaking up life of the school as well as that of the town’s Turkish community. At the same time, at the Ministry of National Education in Paris, the members of the Council of Elders who are in charge of secularism, open their doors for the first time to admit a film crew. They attempt to provide general answers to teachers and their disorientated management.

AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING: Original French version only