The 15-year-old boy committed suicide at his home on September 5, 2023, the victim of school bullying. A silent march took place this Thursday, one year to the day after the tragedy.
“The education system has failed in its missions,” accused Béatrice Le Blay, mother of young Nicolas who killed himself a year ago after being harassed at school during a silent march in Poissy (Yvelines), on Thursday, September 5.
Gathered in front of the tomb of her 15-year-old son, a hundred people dressed in white, many of them bearing the image of the teenager, smiling and holding a glass of orange juice, as well as political figures, including Gabriel Attal, listened to Béatrice Le Blay.
His son had asked him after a radio report on bullying was broadcast: “How many suicides will it take for this to stop?”
“Remembering his words, I feel like he sacrificed himself,” she lamented before leading the march under a rainy sky from the cemetery to the high school where her son experienced an “ordeal.”
On September 5, 2023, she discovered her son’s body, hanged, at their home.
Harassment from the beginning of the year
The teenager had complained in the first months of the 2022-2023 school year of harassment in his high school class and his parents had alerted the teaching team.
But given the lack of response from the establishment, they sent a letter to the principal. The rectorate responded by judging their attitude “unacceptable” and mentioned the criminal risks of an inaccurate denunciation. “From victim, he became guilty,” summarized Béatrice Le Blay.
Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Education, described the letter from the Versailles rectorate as a “shame” and ordered an administrative inquiry.
Arriving at the cemetery a few moments after the announcement of Michel Barnier’s appointment to his post, Gabriel Attal hugged Nicolas’ mother upon his arrival.
“We consider that there was involuntary manslaughter”
Harassment is “a poison whose antidote is in each and every one of us,” the former Prime Minister asserted, adding that he had said to himself that he wanted to be with Nicolas’ family “whatever the institutional and political circumstances of the country.”
At the end of the silent march, Béatrice Le Blay, who repeatedly praised the attention given to her by several political leaders, nevertheless deplored not knowing more about the progress of the ongoing administrative investigation.
“We consider that there was involuntary homicide. (…) Faced with this series of serious failings, we have decided to file a complaint against unknown persons with civil action,” she announced.
His lawyer, Thomas Bodin, told AFP that an initial complaint to the police station had been filed in September 2023, but that the complaint with civil action would be filed this Thursday.
