National Agenda : France’s Culture War Gets Cooking in Classroom : It’s serious work for children to mind their peas and Brie in a country that values integration and abhors the idea of ‘minorities.’

High on the wall of Juliette Cerutti’s fourth-grade classroom here is a timeline celebrating the glory of France, from the sturdy Gauls to Charlemagne, Joan of Arc to Napoleon. But the French tradition being taught this day was decidedly more pungent.

Wrinkling their noses, the boys and girls sampled crusty wedges of Camembert and Brie, chunks of yellow Gruyere and cylinders of goat cheese. Textures, tastes, sounds and smells were discussed amid the giggles. And history too: Charlemagne loved Roquefort, they learned, and Brie was a staple of the 19th-Century working class.

By lesson’s end, the palate of a new generation had been awakened, if not exactly won over. Diane likes the Brie, Andreas prefers the milky cheese of the Savoy region, and Zinna loves Roquefort. A sampling of gratin dauphinois, made of potatoes and Gruyere, made an impression on 10-year-old Noura Benameur.

“Before I tasted that,” she said, “I used to prefer pizza.”

Welcome to the front line in the pitched battle to keep France French, a task that has never been more difficult. In 400 classrooms across the country, culinary experts are leading courses in le gout , or taste, to instill an appreciation for that most integral part of French culture.

Le gout is not just food, of course. In the schools--society’s main tool for turning children, including immigrants, into French men and women--children soak up the language (no bilingual public schools in France, thank you), history, literature, art, laws and standards of public behavior along with their taste for Brie.

But the system hasn’t been working well of late. The French model of integration is under pressure. The schools aren’t doing the job.

The threats are everywhere, creeping like vines around the patrimonial tree. Youngsters feed regularly on McDonald’s hamburgers, and fast-food joints are driving bistros by the thousands off the streets of Paris. Teen-agers watch Hollywood movies, play le basket and implore each other to “be cool.”

But the more disturbing trend for the French is the increasing number of new immigrants who refuse to assimilate the culture, choosing instead to live in closed ethnic enclaves that local culture cannot penetrate. The successful integration of 7 million Italians, Russians, Spaniards and Poles, whose children became French men and women during the first 60 years of this century, seems a distant memory.

The French notion of integration has always differed, subtly but significantly, from the U.S. model. France is a true melting pot of cultures, where they are steadily melded into one whole, while the United States produces more of a chunky stew.

Americans consider their country a collection of ethnic groups that sometimes need protection in order to flourish. The French abhor the whole idea of “minorities.” No one in France speaks, for example, of African French or Chinese French people.

And yet minorities have appeared, gathering in the impoverished suburbs of the major cities. France’s inability to successfully integrate these immigrants has threatened social cohesion. And the question of how to keep France French has turned into one of the country’s most important philosophical and political debates.

No prominent French leader seriously questions the French ideal of integration. But some disagree on how to make it work.

The conservative government argues for a return to basics, to programs such as the seminars in le gout in hopes of restoring the schools as powerful instruments of integration. At the same time, the government wants to make it more difficult for immigrants to enter France.

But others, notably left-leaning intellectuals, argue that minorities must be accepted as a fact of life. They point out that the new breed of immigrant is no longer European or, for the most part, Christian--and as a result has had more trouble adapting than have previous arrivals. The solution, they contend, is to recognize and help the minority communities by creating a transitional culture shared by young people of all origins.

Former President Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist, favored the latter and spoke of a “threshold of tolerance.”

Now, President Jacques Chirac, a conservative, is in power, with a conservative-controlled National Assembly and a vociferous anti-immigrant party on the far right. Chirac figures he can restore le modele francais by enforcing the non-religious character of schools and closing the doors on immigrants.

“You have to understand that French civilization is a civilization of uniformity, while the Anglo-Saxon one is based on diversity,” said former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.

“At the heart of all French men and women, there is the feeling that we embody international values,” Balladur continued. “If you look at our colonial past, for a century it essentially consisted of seeing to it that the largest possible number of people were able to join the French model of civilization. You can say that is generosity, if you like. Or you can say it’s a sort of imperialism. It’s probably a bit of both.”

Kofi Yamgnane, who was minister delegate of integration in Mitterrand’s Socialist government, is living proof of the adage. Lured to France from rural Togo 30 years ago, Yamgnane today is married to a Frenchwoman, has French children and feels, he says, “profoundly French.”

Yamgnane thinks France must first make up its mind on the fundamental question, Is integration of immigrants into French society a good thing? He firmly believes it is. And as head of the private Foundation for Republican Integration, he argues that the state must spend less time trying to keep immigrants out and more time showing them “the path they must follow to enter the national community.”

“This is a secular state, and that gives children two distinct spheres of life,” he said. “In the private sphere, you can have your religious beliefs, whether they are Muslim or Christian. In the public sphere, you must be a true republican and adhere to the laws.”

In the past year, several Muslim girls have been expelled from school for defying a new ban on wearing head scarves in French classrooms. Their insistence on wearing the scarves touched off a furor.

Many French see a dark force at work there. Some Muslim leaders in France, as elsewhere in the world, have argued that Islamic laws take precedence over state laws. And those leaders have precipitated the scarf controversy, challenging one of France’s most treasured achievements--the secularity of government schools. Opinion polls show that most French want to keep every morsel of religion out of the schools.

Conservative lawmakers, who took power two years ago, passed a raft of laws that have made it more difficult for immigrants to marry French citizens and for the children of immigrants to get citizenship. At the same time, police have cracked down on illegal immigrants.

For now, the government believes that schools remain the best hope for assimilating the new immigrants, who number 3.5 million in this nation of 58 million people.

In classes of 8- to 10-year-olds, like Cerutti’s in the working-class 13th arrondissement of Paris, that means a 10-week, state-sponsored course every year in le gout, an undeniable cultural force.

The leader in le gout is Agnes Fruchon, 32, one of 30 teachers from the National Culinary Arts Institute who introduce children to French food and its origins, and teach them to how to describe new tastes with the easy confidence, and even the vocabulary, of a wine-taster.

“The kids today are really not being educated at home,” Fruchon said. “Their mothers and fathers work during the day, and when they come home, they feel guilty and give the children what they want. That means pizza and pasta. They’re not really used to eating fresh things.”

The courses begin simply, with such things as apples and bananas. As the pupils bit into chunks of apple the other day, Fruchon encouraged them to be creative. “Describe the sounds in your mouth,” she said.

“It sounds like waves on the ocean,” offered 10-year-old Christophe.

“Very good,” Fruchon said.

Next, the class moves on to distinctive tastes, such as radishes, mustard, pepper, garlic and onions. But the biggest challenge, for Fruchon, is cheese day.

“They are used to eating prepackaged cheese,” Fruchon said. “And then we give them these aromatic cheeses.”

On the last day, feast day, the pupils each bring foods from their families’ home regions. And that is when the cultural diversity of France really shines through.

On a recent feast day, Guillaume, 10, brought quiche Lorraine, a specialty of his mother’s hometown in the Vosges region of eastern France. There also were traditional regional desserts, including nougat de Montelimar, from Provence; caramels a la creme, from Normandy; and creme de marrons from the Ardeche.

But there also was Algerian cake and Egyptian cake. And for the main course, the biggest hit of all was couscous with sausage and lamb, served up by 10-year-old Tuphek. His parents, now French, come from Morocco.