2023-09-16 19:00:00
“A shame”, “shocking, “a failure”: the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister did not have harsh enough words on Saturday to qualify the content of a letter from the rectorate of Versailles to the family of a high school student from Poissy (Yvelines), who complained of school harassment and who committed suicide this fall.
“This letter is a shame, a shame,” declared Gabriel Attal on the steps of his ministry, after the broadcast by BFMTV of exchanges of letters between the family, the principal of his high school and the rectorate of Versailles in the spring of 2023, a few months before the teenager’s suicide on September 5.
Shortly before this intervention, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne described as “shocking” the tone of the missive sent by the Versailles rectorate on May 4 to the high school student’s parents.
The rectorate described as “unacceptable” the comments of parents who would have “questioned” the attitude of the school staff, according to this letter posted online on the BFMTV website on Saturday. Enjoining parents to adopt a “constructive and respectful attitude” towards them, the letter from the rectorate also reminded them of the criminal risks of slanderous denunciation.
For Élisabeth Borne, “there was clearly a failure in the type of response addressed to parents who were extremely worried”. “Obviously it’s shocking,” she added.
Gabriel Attal, who was alongside the family on Friday for the funeral of the teenager who died at the age of 15, recalled having launched an administrative investigation. “Its inspectors have started their work, they will give me their conclusions within two weeks,” he said.
“I will draw all the conclusions, including in terms of sanctions,” said the minister, who took office last July.
“I have made the fight against harassment the absolute priority” but “we are still not up to the task,” declared the Minister of Education.
It will bring together “from Monday all the rectors, for an audit in all the rectorates on all the harassment situations reported to the rectorates over the past year”.
“Defend the students”
“My role is not to defend an institution at all costs, it is to defend the protection of our students and our children at all costs and that is how I will continue to move forward,” he said. he concluded.
Attended third grade at the Adrienne-Bolland vocational high school in Poissy, the teenager reported acts of harassment in December 2022.
According to the exchanges of letters revealed by BFMTV, the parents had met the principal of the establishment on March 10, 2023 in order to “express our son’s distress regarding the harassment he has suffered since October”, according to their letter to the principal. They regretted that this meeting was not followed by concrete effects according to them.
“A handrail was left at the Poissy police station” and “it is incomprehensible that you can let a teenager suffer such verbal and psychological violence without reacting,” they wrote to the person in charge.
The principal responded in a long letter on April 20, indicating that it was necessary to “understand the situation to decide on the operating procedure to be implemented.”
It was the letter from the Versailles rectorate, dated May 4, which aroused the indignation of Gabriel Attal.
The young man returned to another establishment on September 4, in Paris. He hanged himself the next day.
16/09/2023 18:59:34 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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