Few countries in Europe are so keen on controlling education as the French there are some hundreds of Christian schools active Jérome Garnier opens the Bible app on his mobile phone and reads a passage from Exodus He shares some thoughts from this passage with his colleagues in the English classroom they collect prayer topics and bow their heads This is how the staff of the Christian school Établissement Daniel in the French Alsace start their working day The furniture in this classroom is not fancy The teachers still work with chalkboards and the paint is peeling off the window frames they are motivated to offer Christian education a castle-like villa from 1860 just outside Guebwiller; a town north of Mulhouse in the east of France the pupils are gathering and start climbing the stairs They wear school uniforms in different colours Most of them come from the valley around Guebwiller but some have to travel more than an hour to get to school Établissement Daniel is one of the largest Christian schools in the whole of France apart from a school on the outskirts of Paris “Training in Christian worldview,” summarises director Patrick Schmitt the purpose of the school Our purpose is to enhance the Christian mentality that seeks God’s glory on Monday as well as on Sunday.” Schmitt himself came along in 1988 as a young teacher He was still seeking for “God’s calling” in his life “Then a girl said: Since I am in the school Schmitt’s own assistant and some teachers started at the school as pupils in the classrooms there is a 30-minute morning devotion from a teacher or student sharing something from his personal faith In the timetable there is room for Christian elements every week Schmitt: “Every teacher will in his or her own way clarify certain aspects of a topic with a Biblical perspective Schmitt also finds subjects like national history wonderful when they are enlightened from a spiritual angle Christian education always had a central place in France “Many schools are rooted in church institutions Especially the Reformation in the 16th century brought an impetus of Christian education It was a tool to keep the faith in the culture” secular education is quite a new invention.” He refers to the French Reformer John Calvin who said: “No church will flourish without a school.” That quote is posted at several places in the school together with an image of the reformer the French state has gained more of a foothold in the education sector Compulsory education applies from the age of 3 in France “so that parents cannot ‘indoctrinate’ their children one of our education ministers once said,” says Schmitt parents came together in the late eighties to start Établissement Daniel as an alternative The pupil numbers grew to 150 just before 2000 the school has reached a peak at 240 and that number is still increasing The children at the school come from 15-20 church denominations that range from Roman Catholic to Reformed since the school does not ask for those details Children of non-Christian parents also attend the school Agreeing to the school’s principles –and for older pupils a letter of motivation to go to the upper secondary school ("lycée")– is enough to be admitted to the school Établissement Daniel does not have a specific confession as foundation of the work. “We only work with the basic belief that is shared by all Christians, formulated by the Evangelical Alliance you hear students debate about certain topics The idea is to mix youth from different churches and to bring unity in Christ’s body,” Schmitt argues there is little debate about issues as creation versus evolution Although some pastors in the spiritual neighbourhood of the school say “We stick to the idea that all of the Bible is true and also historic Although we are in contact with different visions.” the school always has an interview with new parents We ask them to respect that the school works from that background; that we read the Bible when the parents do not agree with us in matters of faith 95 per cent of the children come from a Christian home.” The prayer meeting room has changed into a place for learning English has acted as the head English teacher for at least seven years When visitors –as the reporters for this feature– enter the classroom They practice their English by asking questions to the journalists Établissment Daniel has several exchange programs with Christian schools abroad in Finland (Espoo) Schmitt also attends conferences of international education networks as ACSI Eureca and the European Alliance for Christian Education (EACE) The exchanges with the French school leads to baking Pulla –a traditional Finnish bread with lots of seeds on top– together her two sisters and a brother to school by car; a 25-minute drive each way That really fits with what we are used at home When we have a common worship in the chapel She could do that at Daniel but she prefers going to another high school Jérome Garnier explains to a handful of high school teenagers the ins and outs of the European Union Commission and Council are at the whiteboard Garnier explains the different visions on EU integration Daniel started to build up the high school in the late nineties 25 students are enrolled in this preparation for university Schmitt: “The pupils can only enter the high school if they are motivated for that we ask them to write us a letter of motivation.” the space is open with the children are playing there it seemed foolish to buy an old chateau for the school “The maintenance has always been a challenge although there is a group of volunteers to do the work The rooms in this building have the size of a classroom.” the house was claimed by the German Gestapo as their headquarters the building was a place of Christian witness “The Scripture Union sat here until the eighties We thought that a school might be a proper purpose for the building.” a group of high school students enjoy their pause Esther (15) came to Daniel three years ago I started hearing the word of God and felt His presence Through the school and the example of teachers and students the school was important in her personal walk with God I asked my parents to switch to this school It is important for me to pray together with my Christian friends here during the break.” Christian education in France is a “work of faith” The state does not give subsidies and there are no large church denominations that support Établissement Daniel Most of the money comes from the parents or private donations The salaries of teachers are not high: just the minimum wage of about 1500 Euros per month while most schools struggle to get personnel Daniel has more than enough reactions on vacancies it is a blessing when we can pay the salaries it's time to pay the heating bills or something Not only the teachers but also the parents are called to pray around 95 per cent of the parents participate People are more keen to gather for praying.” private schools have to cover their own costs In Guebwiller this means that parents pay 260 Euros per child per month When more children from one family come to the school We always try to help parents who cannot pay the full tuition fee.” there is contact with the state through the inspection that checks whether the school meets educational standards Schmitt: “The inspector was astonished that we taught evolution as a theory The inspector did not raise the sensitive subject of sexual identity and LGBT rights the school has been in trouble about this regarding a former colleague the legal position of Christian schools can vary from region to region But all over the country you see that the state claims control over education The school believes that the state indeed has God-given tasks education is the primary responsibility of the parents.” the laicité tradition is that the state is quite strict in its demands “Especially the left-wing parties stress that” In the meantime, the society itself develops. In the year 2000, there were 100 private schools in the country. This number has sky-rocketed to 2000, varying from Roman Catholic to Jewish schools. “That shows that parents seek control, too.” The Fondation pour l’École represents the private schools at national level Schmitt reckons with the possibility that France will come to an even stricter policy Schmitt is full of plans with Établissement Daniel One of his primary desires is to be of more help to smaller schools in the region “which have not the same blessings as we have” and struggle to survive already 10 per cent of our money goes to other schools when we ourselves were in need of 80,000 Francs Établissement Daniel belongs to a network of more than 40 Christian schools in France Especially in the Paris area and along the river Rhône In France, the network organisation is Réseau Mathurin Cordier The umbrella organisation of all French speaking evangelical schools is AESPEF This organisation also works for schools in Belgium and Africa Try a different filter or a new search keyword Streaming and Download help Redeem code supported by 8 fans who also own “Wait And Bleed (Slipknot cover)” supported by 7 fans who also own “Wait And Bleed (Slipknot cover)” We will send you the playlist as soon as the record is airplayed on our 30 radios partners in the world Send your promo stuff and you will be aired > www.solenopole.org Solenoïde Honestly I've not listened to a Heilung album that I don't like French singer-songwriter Sophia Djebel Rose makes shadowy minimal psych-folk with magnetic and immediate emotional connection Astralingua mixes otherwordly folk and augural classical music into their newest offering Jurre Timmer sets out on the well-trodden path from thunderous doom metal to primeval chamber folk Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp “Strong Love — Songs of Gay Liberation 1972-81” Resurrects a Forgotten Era of Queer Music Ezra Furman’s “Twelve Nudes” is a “Firehose of Frustration” Joan Shelley’s Music Cuts Through the Chaos of Daily Life Backxwash joins the show to discuss her recent release French police have arrested three people as part of investigations into a new form of burglary in which the criminals melted windows by using blowtorches The suspects were arrested by Haut-Rhin gendarmerie on suspicion of committing some 30 burglaries in the area Their arrests, on January 10, helped shed new light on a new technique noticed by police, in which the burglars use tools including blowtorches to melt the PVC on windows - especially the locks - to gain access, reports local newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace (DNA) The suspects, a French 50-year-old mother her 30-year-old daughter and 33-year-old Italian-Albanian son-in-law, have now been charged with organised theft and conspiracy Read more: Where are homes most at risk of burglary in France?  the Soultz-Guebwiller police force seized tools including a blowtorch as well as 200 items believed to be stolen They are believed to have committed around 30 burglaries in the Soultzmatt valley Anyone who believes they have been a victim of the burglaries is invited to contact the Soultz-Guebwiller police force on 03 89 74 97 36 to see if any of their stolen belongings can be recovered Read also: Burglaries: Watch out for this sheet of paper in letterbox trick on homes in France  The news comes days after police in Brittany warned residents of another type of new burglary technique in which burglars check to see who might be away from home by placing a blank sheet of A4 paper in the letterbox and seeing which residents do not remove it New official stats have been released with significant geographical differences as well as a special check for elderly people advice on how to avoid ‘fake police’ scams Official figures show areas with improvements and those that got worse You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience and security Alfred Kastler was born in Guebwiller in Alsace on May 3 He followed his early studies at the school in his native town and continued at the Oberrealschule of Colmar He entered the École Normale Superieure in 1921 The next stage of his career was in higher education: assistant at the Bordeaux Faculty of Science from 1931 to 1936 lecturer at Clermont-Ferrand from 1936 to 1938 Georges Bruhat asked him to come to Paris to help him in establishing physics teaching at the Ecole Normale Superieure but was confirmed by the allocation of a chair in a personal capacity at the Paris Faculty of Sciences in 1952 His mathematics teachers at the Colmar Lycée Fröhlich from Bavaria and Edouard Greiner from Alsace were the first to awaken his interest in science This predilection became consolidated in the special mathematics class held by Mahuet and Brunold who helped Kastler to gain entry to the École Normale Superieure by the side entrance In the stimulating and friendly atmosphere of this college the teacher Eugène Bloch (who came from the upper Rhine and who subsequently disappeared without trace in Auschwitz) initiated his students into the concepts of Bohr’s atom and quantum physics and drew Kastler’s attention to Sommerfeld’s book on atomic structure and spectral lines This book introduced him to the principle of the conservation of momentum applied by A Rubinowicz to the exchange of energy between atoms and radiation This principle was to guide the whole of Kastler’s research beginning with his thesis up to the most recent investigations of the Parisian team Alfred Kastler was in 1931 appointed assistant to Pierre Daure professor at the Bordeaux Faculty of Science His teaching duties were then less onerous and Kastler was able to devote all his free time to research aided by Professor Daure who initiated him into experimental spectroscopy he worked in the field of optical spectroscopy particularly on atomic fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy [In I937 he became interested in the luminescence of sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere; after establishing that the D line of the twilight sky could be absorbed by sodium vapour and after some studies at Abisko where twilight is prolonged he was able to demonstrate in cooperation with his colleague Jean Bricard as it must be if the emission mechanism is one of optical resonance produced by solar radiation.] French scientists were virtually isolated from the outside world it was possible to send pupils to other western countries so that they could bring their knowledge of the most recent devel opments in scientific progress up to date who returned in 1951 in possession of a mass of information gained under Francis Bitter at M.I.T Under the influence of Gorter, Rabi had very successfully applied certain methods to the investigation of atoms in their fundamental state Bitter suggested extending these same methods to the excited states of atoms Brossel and Kastler together then proposed the ” double resonance method “ which combines optical resonance with magnetic resonance he carried out pioneer work along these lines on the excited state of the mercury atom Kastler was supplementing the method by the technique of “optical pumping” which makes it possible to apply “optical methods for studying the microwave resonances” to the fundamental states of atoms Kastler worked in collaboration with Jean Brossel in Paris to perfect all these methods Among the young men and women at the École Normale Their theses represent the various stages in their collective work which has been awarded the Nobel Prize and of which some account is given in Kastler’s Nobel lecture In Decermber 1924 Kastler married Elise Cosset a former pupil of the École Normale Supérieure By working as a history teacher in secondary schools she made it possible for her husband to devote to research all the leisure time left to him by his own teaching duties whose ages range from 14 years to 10 months Daniel is a Professor of Physics at the Faculty of Science in Marseilles he is working on theoretical physics problems; Mireille is an ophthalmologist in Paris and Claude-Yves teaches Russian at the Arts Faculty in Grenoble Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons Tasked with a mission to manage Alfred Nobel's fortune and has ultimate responsibility for fulfilling the intentions of Nobel's will these academic institutions have worked independently to select Nobel Prize laureates Several outreach organisations and activities have been developed to inspire generations and disseminate knowledge about the Nobel Prize The 7th Live From London Festival from VOCES8 Foundation has been unveiled today the summer of music will feature acclaimed artists including tenor Ian Bostridge pianist Julius Drake and the vocal ensembles VOCES8 Each concert is filmed live in the presence of audiences from venues across the UK including St Martin-in-the-Fields in London Christ Church Cathedral and the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford For more information visit livefromlondon.org - though as a taste of what's to come we're delighted to bring you this exclusive film of VOCES8 singing Bruckner's ‘Locus Iste’ recorded on June 18 at Les Dominicains in Guebwiller If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information Last Updated on 28th October 2024 by Sophie Nadeau Guebwiller is a beautiful French town characterised by its small cobbled lanes and claim to fame as the heart of ‘Blue Christmas’ (otherwise known as ‘Noël Bleu’ in French) Here’s your ultimate Guebwiller Christmas Market Guide Guebwiller Christmas Market 2024: (dates to be confirmed) Situated in the Haut-Rhin department of Eastern France Guebwiller is a tiny town with a population of around eleven and a half thousand residents Twinned with Castelfiorentino in Italy and the magical town of Lucerne in Switzerland highlights of the Alsatian settlement include the two churches one of which is constructed in the early Gothic style and the other in the Romanesque There’s also an Early Renaissance town hall Guebwiller has come to be known as the home of ‘Blue Christmas’ thanks to a series of light displays projected onto the two town churches during the festive season as well as a series of blue-light decorated trees in one of the markets Though you might imagine that the term ‘Noël Bleu’ comes from the led lights throughout Guebwiller or perhaps the iconic ‘Blue Christmas’ song by Elvis Presley the name actually is for an acclaimed ceramicist There are two distinctive locations for the Christmas Markets in Guebwiller though they are generally listed as a single event and can be reached within a few minutes walk of one another While one is smaller and lies in the shadow of the famed ‘blue church,’ the other is a much larger affair The smaller of the two main Christmas markets in Guebwiller is at the foot of Saint Léger church the entire event is illuminated in blue LED lights and sells local products such as chocolate there are daily illuminations projected onto both the Saint Léger Church (where a Christmas Market is to be found) as well as the little bit further out of town Notre Dame Church The second of the Guebwiller Christmas Markets is centred around an ice skating rink in the very heart of the town While the ‘Hôtel de Ville’ (town hall) is lit up with its own light displays an eco-friendly ice skating rink is fun for all the family There is a children’s area called ‘Village des enfants’ featuring a carousel and an illuminated bear The larger of the two Christmas Markets in Guebwiller is in the very heart of the Alsace town There are a number of Bavarian-style chalets selling everything from hot wine to locally produced foodstuffs (jams We visited Guebwiller during the evening and found it pretty difficult to find a space to park avoid well before sunset in order to find ample parking before the main event begins Although many people we met spoke a great level of English, it’s only polite to learn a few words of the local language, in this case, French. Bring along a French phrasebook like this one to help you get by there’s a particularly special event in that fireworks are launched from nearby vineyards and illuminated ‘Blue Christmas’ Like every other traditional Christmas Market most vendors don’t accept bank cards and so bring along enough cash to buy both presents and foodstuffs Though the sun may (and hopefully will be) shining during your visit come night time the temperature swiftly drops and the wind can truly pick up As such, make sure to pack a warm hat, gloves, and a coat. I particularly love this vegan winter coat be sure to pack a comfortable pair of shoes Guebwiller is filled with little alleyways and cobbled lanes so shoes that are easy to walk in are essential Situated in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains, Guebwiller is to be found to the North West of Mulhouse, somewhere on the road between the tiny town of Eguisheim (best-known for its three castles) and the city of Mulhouse the second largest settlement in the Alsace region there’s therefore no shortage of adorable Christmas markets and things to do close to Guebwiller Mulhouse is a true delight come Christmastime and the main market in town (lying in the shadow of the grand Cathedral) is presided over by a magnificent ferris wheel which you can go on to admire the market from above But what makes the market at Mulhouse truly unique is that a special ‘Christmas fabric’ is produced each year and you can even purchase this fabric by the metre The Christmas cups for vin chaud are decorated with the fabric pattern and it can be found across the city adorning chalets and other spaces Thann is a delightful French market town set around a delightful example of typically Alsatian Gothic architecture (including one of the best-preserved tympanums I’ve ever seen) Situated under the shadow of a ruinous castle, Thann is home to a handful of markets clustered around the main parish church. For more information, check out this complete guide to the Thann Christmas Market Enjoyed reading this guide about how to visit Guebwiller Christmas Market Planning a trip to the European Christmas markets Want more handy information to bring with you on-the-go Our digital companion guide is over 130 pages long and is packed with detailed tips and tricks to help you plan the perfect trip Sophie Nadeau is a full time travel writer and photographer focused on cultural experiences in Europe and beyond When she's not chasing after the sunset (or cute dogs she sees on her travels) she can be found reading and website in this browser for the next time I comment Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. I started this site back in 2015 with one mission in mind: I wanted to create useful travel guides with a historical and cultural focus Today it has blossomed into my full time job and together with a small team of writers (including my husband and sister) we craft articles to help you travel better throughout Europe © 2015- 2025 Sophie Nadeau. Nadeau Pasquier LTD. All Rights Reserved. solosophie participates in various affiliate marketing programs. solosophie is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Privacy Policy