Equality, diversity and inclusion in the school's DNA

A support and reporting system for situations of harassment, discrimination and gender-based and sexual violence

Centrale Nantes is strongly committed to diversity, equality and inclusion among its staff and students. In 2020, it set up an Equality and Diversity Commission, the aim of which is to enable everyone to embrace their differences and identities without fear of how they will be viewed by others, and to maintain equality and respect for all.

This committee works across 5 main areas: international, gender equality, disability, secularism and LGBTQI+.

In 2023, a support and reporting system was set up to deal with incidents of harassment, discrimination and gender-based and sexual violence. This system is accessible to staff and students, whether they are victims or witnesses.

The system has 3 components: support, reporting and legal proceedings. At any time, a victim or witness can contact the school's reporting unit, which will initiate proceedings. Resources both inside and outside the school are mobilised to provide appropriate support. Lastly, legal proceedings may be initiated, either by the victim or by the director via a report to the public prosecutor (in accordance with article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). This procedure is independent of that of the school.

All reports sent to the reporting unit are dealt with on an individual basis in order to hear what the victim or witness has to say and to offer appropriate support.

Awareness of harassment, discrimination and gender-based and sexual violence is the subject of a compulsory one-day awareness-raising session for first-year engineering programme students.

Raising awareness about sexism

The Fresque du Sexisme is a collaborative, educational team workshop designed to unravel the mechanics of sexism and identify the dynamics that fuel the vicious circle of gender inequality.

The workshop is broken down into 3 phases:

• Exploration phase: discovering concepts and statistics, and piecing together the sexist mechanism using collective intelligence.
• Sharing phase: sharing experiences and lessons learnt from past or present organisations.
• Leverage and role-playing phase: identify areas for action in the workplace, and project yourself into real-life work situations.

According to the StOpE barometer, for more than 8 out of 10 women, sexism at work is still a reality.

Centrale Nantes has made the Fresque du Sexisme available to all students and staff. The aim of the workshop is to increase understanding of the systemic issues surrounding sexism and to provide participants with the tools they need to take action on the subject.

 

A play to raise awareness of sexual and gender-based violence

Since 2022, first-year engineering programme students attend an annual play that deals with sexual and gender-based violence. This is part of the civic engagement of 100 hours that each engineering programme student is required to undertake as part of his/her studies. In 2023, the students attended a play entitled ‘Des ponts à la place des murs’.

The aim is to tackle the subject of sexual and gender-based violence in a more compelling way and to get students more involved in the debate.
In 2023: the students were asked to position themselves in the room according to their point of view and to interact with the moderator of the session.

 

Lecture on ‘Laïcité - comprendre / se comprendre’ (Secularism - understanding / self-understanding)

A Lecture by a Professor of Legal History at the Faculty of Law and Political Science in Nantes. This presentation looked at the historical appreciation, the legal approach and the common perception of secularism.

‘Secularism is not one opinion among others, but the freedom to hold one’, a reminder from the Bureau des Cultes of the French Ministry of the Interior.