Heurs et malheurs de la littérature dans les manuels de FLE destinés au secondaire en Angleterre (2016-2022)

In 2016, following the reform of secondary school curricula in modern foreign languages in England, literature reappeared in textbooks. After examining how this reform was received and how trainee teachers envisaged their practice (Ulma & Schäfer, 2018), as well as the examinations that validate secondary education (Ulma & Schäfer, 2022), we analyse what the presence and use of literature show by studying French as a Foreign Language (FLE) textbooks intended for secondary education. Our hypothesis is that the problem was inherent from the outset, and that trying to meet both the objectives of the curricula and those of the examinations (which shape teaching practices) amounted to a double bind that could only be detrimental to the presence of literature in the modern foreign language classroom: how have textbooks dealt with this challenging demand?