La Vague is an association founded by Nathalie Gautier and Adeline Toullier. Its mission is to strengthen the capacities and skills of grassroots organizations that lack sufficient resources. It supports French associations and NGOs working in particular for women’s rights, gender equality, and reproductive health.
Fondation RAJA-Danièle Marcovici (FRDM): La Vague is an association committed to defending women’s rights, combating gender-based and sexual violence, and promoting gender equality. As the co-founder, could you tell us more about the work you do to tackle these issues?
Nathalie Gautier (N.G.): La Vague is an association I co-founded with Adeline Touquet in early 2022, following an assessment of the needs of women’s rights organizations. What makes La Vague unique is that we are not a grassroots organization ourselves. Instead, we aim to amplify the impact and capabilities of existing grassroots organizations across France—particularly those working on women’s rights, gender equality, reproductive health, and related topics.
We support these organizations by sharing our skills and expertise, which we’ve gained from working in other sectors. What we found is that many grassroots organizations are under-resourced and lack internal professional capacities. They often don’t have dedicated staff for advocacy or communications—these responsibilities usually fall to the president or director. That’s where we come in: offering expert guidance to strengthen and develop their advocacy strategies, helping them build coalitions, and harmonizing their messaging to boost visibility and influence with policymakers.
On the women’s rights front, we’ve brought together a coalition of associations that worked on the EU directive against domestic, gender-based, and sexual violence. Together, we drafted amendments and advocated for them with key decision-makers. Currently, we have another coalition evaluating how the Istanbul Convention is being implemented in France. We’ve produced a 100-page report detailing civil society’s findings, analysis, and recommendations—available on the Council of Europe website. This group is continuing its work by promoting the Convention among legal professionals, as it remains too little known and applied.
Two years ago, we also identified a major issue: the 2001 Aubry law on affective and sexual education is not being implemented. In response, we formed a coalition that published a White Paper outlining 56 recommendations for a meaningful affective and sexual education program. We presented it to the Senate in November 2023. What’s unique here is that the coalition includes not just NGOs but also unions from the national education system—teachers, school nurses, school principals—as well as student and parent associations. That’s what defines La Vague’s approach: we identify a key issue and rally all the relevant stakeholders to move it forward.
FRDM: In 2001, the Aubry law made sex education mandatory in primary and secondary schools, requiring three sessions per year starting from first grade, with the aim of “promoting sexual health among youth.” Since 2018, every high school is also supposed to appoint a “gender equality officer.” Yet, according to UNICEF France, by 2020, 65% of 15–19-year-olds reported not having received any sessions the previous school year. Additionally, 7 out of 10 young women said that consent was never addressed during their schooling. And more than two-thirds of high schools had never designated a gender equality officer. What explains this lack of implementation of the 2001 Aubry law?
N.G.: Only about 15% of students in France receive the three mandated sessions on affective and sexual education each year. The main issue is that there is no structured, standardized program. It’s always been something extra—left to the discretion of school nurses, biology teachers, or others willing to take it on. But the staff isn’t trained for it.
As a result, what students often get is a basic rundown of anatomy, biology, contraception, and STIs—but no discussion of consent, gender equality, or gender-based violence.
Ideally, all students would benefit from sessions led by both trained teachers and external organizations specialized in addressing more sensitive aspects of affective and sexual education. But there’s a serious lack of resources from both the State and individual schools. The organization that delivers the most interventions is Planning Familial, yet they turn down as many requests as they accept, simply due to budget constraints. Many associations provide sessions on a voluntary basis, which shouldn’t be the case.
What’s needed is national and local coordination, a standardized curriculum, adequate funding specifically allocated for this form of education, and a national communication strategy to support it. We also need to hire more school nurses to ensure students have access to real, ongoing support on these issues.
FRDM: The government’s new program on affective, relational, and sexual education has recently received unanimous support from the National Council for Education (CSE), a move seen by many as a significant step forward. How can we ensure this program is implemented effectively? What role are you and your partner associations playing in this effort?
N.G.: The creation of a coalition to put forward recommendations for meaningful affective and sexual education was a critical first step. Those recommendations heavily influenced the content of the new EVARS (Espaces de vie affective, relationnelle et sexuelle) program.
We also estimated the budget needed to implement the measures I mentioned earlier: around €620 million per year. That comes to about €52 per student annually—not a huge amount in itself, but the numbers add up because of the scale. We’re constantly being told that we’re in a tight budgetary period and that deficits are an issue. So yes, it’s going to take a lot of effort to ensure these measures are actually implemented.
To that end, we’ve been requesting meetings with MPs, representatives from the Ministry of Education, and other decision-makers. Acting as a coalition gives us more weight than if each organization were working on its own. We also run media campaigns to make this a public issue.
And when I say “we,” I mean the coalition of grassroots organizations—not La Vague alone. Now that the CSE has approved the EVARS program, it’s highly likely it will move forward and be officially published. The remaining question is whether sufficient resources will be allocated. That’s what we’ll continue to push for.
FRDM: Far-right group “Parents Vigilants,” founded by Éric Zemmour, is gaining traction in its opposition to what it calls the “gender theory,” arguing that such topics politicize education with overly progressive ideas. In your view, what risks does a network like this pose to sexuality and gender equality education in schools?
N.G.: This group is already having an impact. Earlier you asked why EVARS isn’t being fully rolled out—this is one of the reasons. These groups target associations, harass teachers, gain major media visibility, and spread misinformation.
To counter this, we’d like to organize webinars for parents to explain the importance of EVARS and debunk some of the myths they might have heard. We’re also hoping to launch a digital communication campaign and put up posters in schools—but again, it all comes down to funding.
As for the far-right and conservative movements, I’d add that it takes real political courage to stand up to them—and so far, that courage has been lacking. Take the ABCD de l’égalité program, launched in 2013 by then-Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem to challenge gender stereotypes. It was scrapped in 2014 under pressure from these very groups. They’re not necessarily large in number, but they’re extremely vocal and well-supported, especially by the media. That gives them an outsized legitimacy, with regular appearances on TV and in the press. They also benefit from significant funding—often international, from private donors.
The same groups that are fighting against EVARS were the ones who opposed marriage equality. So we’re dealing with a well-organized, well-funded opposition, particularly strong when it comes to communication and advocacy—which makes them hard to challenge.
That said, the CSE’s official endorsement of EVARS is a major victory. And we’re not stopping there. We’ll keep mobilizing collectively, raising awareness, pushing for more funding, and encouraging political leaders to show the will needed to ensure this program becomes a reality.
