France

At the invitation of the German Ambassador Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, the fourth binational Franco-German EUSTORY competition on the topic "First World War" ended with an award ceremony on 18 June 2018 in Paris. German and French students conducted research on the topic "Concepts of Peace" before, during and after the First World War. With their projects, more than thousand participants showed how relevant the topic is for them until today.

The ceremony was held in the city palace »Hôtel Beauharnais«, the residence of the German Ambassador in France. Prominent speakers, such as the Secretary of State to the Minister of the Armed Forces in France, Geneviève Darrieussecq, congratulated the prizewinners.

The topic “War and Peace in the Context of the First World War. From the Trenches to the Idea of a United Europe" encouraged 1,151 young French and German students to research the road to peace after the years of hostility, suffering and war atrocities of the First World War. 134 project were handed in. The prizewinners showed diverse approaches to this topic, for example, by researching the peace movements during the First World War or working with individual experiences based on the personal diaries of their own great grandfathers.

Since the launch of EUSTORY France in 2014, the European dimension of the competition has been strengthened with a focus on the Franco-German relation: French teachers who are tutors of a class or a group of pupils are invited to carry out their project and their pedagogical work in collaboration with a German partner class or group and vice versa, so they can exchange views with their European neighbours and incorporate a different point of view into their work.

In total, the jury awarded prizes in five different categories. In the category »tandem«, which was described above, a special collaborative research project was awarded: A collaboration between the »French American School« and the »German Pacific School«, both situated in San Diego, USA, received a second prize. This marks the first time that a French-German tandem from across the Atlantic participated.

List of prizwinners 2018:

Category »Tandem«

First prize: Collège La Croix Rouge La Salle, Brest & Schiller-Gymnasium, Bautzen

Second prize: San Diego French American School & German Pacific School de San Diego

 

Category »Collège«

First prize: Collège Henri Morat, Recey-sur-Ource

Second prize: Collège Champ Lumière, Selongey

 

Category »Lycée Professionel«

First prize: Lycée Robespierre de Lens

Second prize: Collège Champ Lumière, Selongey

 

Category »Lycée«

First prize: Lycée Clemenceau, Montpellier

Second prize: Lycée Fénelon, Clermont-Ferrand

 

Category »Special prize of the jury«

Otto-Schott-Gymnasium, Mainz-Gonsenheim

School Birklehof, Hinterzarten

With its eight cultural centers in Aix, Brest, Dijon, Nantes, Nice, Pau, Paris and Tours the Federation on French-German cultural centers has been managing the administration and organisation of the French Competition since 2012. The competition is supported by the Mission du Centenaire as well as the French Association of History and Geography Teachers (APHG), the Goethe Institutes in France, the Institut Français, the Franco-German Youth Office (OFAJ-DFJW) and the Körber Foundation.