What were the announcements?
After the Arras attack, two meetings took place with associations of local elected officials to define possible security measures. Former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne then raised the possibility of generalizing call buttons in middle and high schools.
At the same time, an audit on security in establishments was launched. It led to the identification of 500 educational establishments “for which strengthening of alert and security systems was necessary”, indicated Gabriel Attal, then Prime Minister, in March. He then specified in April that 150 establishments “identified as most at risk” had already “seen their security reinforced”.
Former Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet also announced in April a ministerial plan to “deploy a shield around the school”, including the creation of a “mobile school force” made up of around twenty personnel. . A plan that remained a dead letter “following political developments, with the government resigning,” the ministry said.
And a year later?
At the start of the school year, after having convened a meeting on security (following shootings at a college in Marseille), the new Minister of Education Anne Genetet indicated that “more than 400 establishments” had been secured out of the 500 identified in risks. She cited the installation of cameras, anti-intrusion gates, alarms, but also “trained personnel”.
She said she hoped that the last 100 establishments deemed to be at risk would be secure “over the school year”, and mentioned “work to be done with local communities because there is also the path to get to school”.
During a meeting on Wednesday with the rectors of academies, the minister hoped for “an increase by November 4” on the 100 priority establishments remaining to be secured. She also asked them that an attack-intrusion security plan (PPMS) exercise be carried out in all establishments “by the end of the school year”.
The unions, for their part, deplore having “not really had an assessment of what has been achieved” for a year, indicates Catherine Nave-Bekhti, general secretary of the CFDT Education. After April, “it was radio silence”, also notes Élisabeth Allain-Moreno, general secretary of SE-Unsa. “Every time, it’s the same. We have to wait for something to happen in an establishment so that, once again, we realize that the file has still not moved forward.”
What have the communities done?
On the side of the communities, in charge of school buildings (communes for schools, departments for middle schools and regions for high schools), the death of Dominique Bernard has “led to us asking a certain number of questions”, underlines Frédéric Leturque, mayor of Arras and co-chair of the education commission of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF).
“We collectively started moving” to “improve security around public places”, he adds, regretting however that the State has not always been “supportive and generous” with communities.
For Jean-Michel Morer, mayor of Trilport (Seine-et-Marne) and education referent at the Association of Small Towns of France (APVF), “the succession of Ministers of Education, each wanting to bring their own touch, does not did not facilitate serene, peaceful and constructive co-construction work.” “What is a shame is that we no longer had too many contacts on these issues” in recent months, he adds.
“We have been working on security for a long time, it did not appear with the Arras attack,” underlines the Régions de France association. “Investments have increased over the years. »
