Le Figaro, one of France’s leading daily newspapers, offered another evaluation of Atlas of Creation on 18 October, 2007. The report in the paper, which has a circulation of 400,000, began with the caption heading “The Darwinism Debate in France Is Spreading Ever Wider.” It then went on to refer to “an increasing rise in the numbers of students protesting against their classes” in France and to “teachers who are baffled as to what replies to give to the persistent questions of some students.” It also said that “the debate on the origin of man which have continued in USA for years has now begun to shake French schools.”
The report said that Atlas of Creation was on sale in bookstores in Paris and stated, under the sub-caption “The Effect of Internet Sites:”
“The impact of creationist web sites and the fact that these theories are continually spreading is a significant reality. Last February, schools received in the post a lavish book titled Atlas of Creation that refutes Darwinism throughout its 770 pages. The work, written by a Turk called Harun Yahya, was sent from Turkey and Germany and aimed to tell everyone of ‘evolutionists’ deceptions and misleading claims’.”
Le Figaro then described how French students are reacting against the theory of evolution:
“Another instructor, a history teacher, ran across a piece of homework among those he was marking that had been written by researching through the internet, nearly half of which consisted of the theory of creation stubbornly espoused by students. Such matters influence young Muslims, some students to various Adventist Protestant churches, young Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular, as well as Catholics and young Jews. Some teachers working in the traditional Jewish quarters of Paris say that they now feel ‘an increasingly more obvious resistance to the theory of evolution.’ … The most hardline of these students [who distrust the theory of evolution] tend to be silent and observe critically in class…”
