Harassment at school: Nicolas’s parents “outraged” by the administration’s responses

2023-09-18 21:30:00

DISPATCH — On September 5, in Poissy in Yvelines, a 15-year-old teenager committed suicide because of the harassment he suffered at high school. Condemning the inaction of the teaching staff, his parents say they are “outraged and appalled” by the letters they received before the tragedy.

At the start of the 2022 school year, Nicolas’s parents reported to the teaching team at Poissy high school that he was being harassed. At that time, “the head teacher was in direct contact with Nicolas’ dad”. In March 2023, they learned from a psychologist that their son had attempted suicide. “It was at that moment that we put everything in motion to help our son: handrail, meeting with the principal, exchange of letters, etc.,” explains his mother, Béatrice.

BFMTV had access to the exchanges between parents and teaching staff, which took place mainly in April. Despite the steps taken by the principal and his team (regular meetings with Nicolas, confrontation with the bullies, etc.), the parents were dissatisfied and particularly worried: “It is incomprehensible that you can let a teenager suffer such violence verbal and psychological in your establishment without reacting in any way, so we will file a complaint and consider you responsible if a disaster were to happen to our son”, they warned. But it was above all the letter from the Versailles rectorate, dated May 4, 2023, which stunned them. The latter clearly criticized them for questioning the attitude of the establishment’s staff, deeming their comments “unacceptable”. Parents were ordered to adopt a “constructive and respectful attitude towards other members of the educational community”. Finally, the rectorate also threatened to file a complaint for slanderous denunciation.

Finally, on September 5, the teenager killed himself while returning to a new establishment in Paris. The parents looked back on the months preceding the incident: “We were outraged and frightened to receive such letters,” Béatrice shared, in a written exchange on Sunday with AFP. “Nicolas’ dad and I didn’t understand. We still don’t understand,” she confided.

For his part, the Minister of Education Gabriel Attal described the administration’s responses as “shame”. He indicated on Saturday that he was awaiting the conclusions of an administrative investigation that he had launched “within two weeks”, and that he would draw “all conclusions, including in terms of sanctions”. Also, he must bring together all the rectors on Monday afternoon “for an audit in all the rectorates on all the harassment situations reported to the rectorates over the past year”.

The parents assured that they wanted to wait for “the results of the investigations and the actions carried out by the government” before taking possible legal action. For the moment, “on the content of the letters that we have received, to date, we have not had any reaction from the educational teams, both in substance and in form”, lamented Nicolas’ mother . “We still do not know if any sanction, even symbolic, was issued against the harassers.”