Gday guys,
don't know if there is anyone still on this one.
Introduction: My scout totem name is Poulain, that is foal for you english speakers, I am an old Guide, used to belong to the same association as Hugolin. I am French and have now settled in Queensland Australia where I work for National Parks.
My scouting years have been great and Hugolin's desciption of Scouting in France is complicated but it does portray the situation there. Basically WOSM and WAAGS are old worldl=wide movements created to confederate the national associations on the world stage. Unfortunately things have changed since then and it is very hard to get in as they only want one federation/association per country.
In Europe, scouting in the twenties was starting to divide by religion.In France we had a Catholic (Scout de France), a Protestant( Eclaireurs Unionistes), a Jewish (Eclaireur Israelites de France), a neutral (Eclaireurs de France)associations.
As Hugolin said in the 60s some tried to modernise scouting by changing uniforms, laws, pedagogy etc and created tensions leading to scissions and creation of new associations most of which are going back to more traditional scouting methods. When I was in France there were about 30 different associations!These new ones can't join WOSM cause there is already an associatuion representing their religion in the national federation.
Hope this clears things up.
Fraternel Salut Scout
Yours in Scouting
Poulain
