Gabriel Attal called for “an electric shock” in the fight against school bullying. Ahead of an interministerial plan unveiled on Wednesday, the minister is meeting the National Education unions this Monday before a visit to the Versailles rectorate at the center of several controversies.
The Education unions are meeting Monday morning on rue de Grenelle, where the minister must take stock of the provisions of the future interministerial plan announced in June, after the suicide of a 13-year-old girl, Lindsay.
“The fight against harment is absolutely essential,” recalled Emmanuel Macron Sunday evening, on TF 1 and France 2.
Since the summer, a series of measures have already been put in place to address what Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne described as the “absolute priority” for the 2023 school year: the possibility of changing schools for haring students this year. or to be able to sanction a perpetrator of cyberharment against a student from another establishment.
However, the Minister of Education intends to go further to protect victims, in particular by dealing with the cyberharment aspect.
During a visit to Copenhagen in Denmark, a country that is a model in the fight against harment, Gabriel Attal said he wanted the confiscation of the cell phone of the child perpetrator of serious cyberbullying to be systematic. He also highlighted the possibility of prohibiting access to social networks of minors involved.
Send “very strong messages” to harers
The tenant of rue de Grenelle also mentioned working on setting up a questionnaire for all students in order to identify “weak signals” in the fight against harment.
More generally, the government claims to send “very strong messages” to harers as evidenced by the arrest last Monday in the middle of cl of a schoolboy suspected of harment against a transgender high school student in Alfortville (Val-de-Marne).
But Gabriel Attal, who is expected Monday afternoon at the Versailles rectorate, also promises his administration “an electric shock at all levels” on school bullying, a scourge which affects between 6 to 10% of students.
In Versailles, the services of the largest academy in France and its former rector, Charline Avenel, are under fire after the suicide the day after the start of the school year, in Poissy (Yvelines) of Nicolas, 15 years old.
The revelation of a letter sent last year by the Versailles rectorate in which it reprimanded the teenager’s parents, accused of not having a “constructive and respectful attitude” and even brandishing the threat of criminal prosecution, sparked a wave of indignation.
“Cold, deaf and blind administration”
This letter is a “disgrace”, judged Gabriel Attal. He announced the launch of an audit on the management of cases of harment during the last school year in each academy.
In an interview with Le Parisien on Sunday, the former rector now at the head of a private education group ured that she had “not been aware” of the letter which she described as “inadmissible”, seeming to place the responsibility solely on the legal services of the academy. However, she presented “an apology to Nicolas’s parents” on her behalf and on behalf of the institution.
For Laurent Zameczkowski, spokesperson for the federation Parents of Public Education Students (PEEP), the apologies of the rector of Versailles are not enough to explain the letters sent indiscriminately to parents who alerted to cases of harment . “The cold, deaf and blind administration which sent this letter was under his direction,” he denounced on Franceinfo on Sunday.
Friday, the terms of a another letter from the Versailles rectorate sent in May to a family who complained of touching of their daughterwere also condemned by Minister Gabriel Attal.
Target of threats and insults, Ms. Avenel declared having filed a complaint as the head of the interacademic legal affairs service of the rectorate targeted by death threats.