Young Jean, 11, from the Somme, testifies to having been beaten up by classmates during his holidays in Camaret-sur-Mer, in Finistère. His mother only discovered his injuries when he returned.
A black eye and bruises on his back, arms and legs. When this Thursday, August 29, Jean, 11, gets off the bus on the way back from his summer camp in Camaret-sur-Mer, in Finistère, he is wearing his sunglasses. Before his eyes, his mother discovers a bruise. Very quickly, the boy claims to have fallen. But his mother does not believe it for a single moment.
After returning to the family home in Oissy, 20 km from Amiens in the Somme, she noticed other injuries all over his body when her son took off his sweater. According to our colleagues at France 3, she then decided to ask one of the presenters for an explanation, who replied that he did not know and referred her to the director of the colony.
Punches and taps
Finally, Jean confides. First to his cousins, then to his parents, now separated. He says he was punched and hit with slaps. “On the third day, they forced him to get on all fours and tried to pull down his pants. He told me that his two years of boxing allowed him to dodge, struggle and get away. He went to hide in a bush,” tells Cécile Lemaire, the mother, to our colleagues. That day, Jean forbade himself from going to dinner, and pretended to sleep, so as not to be bothered further by his tormentors. According to the child, no one would have noticed his absence. Also, the boy told his mother that he had avoided a few showers, so as not to meet his friends who were waiting for him there to attack him.
For Cécile Lemaire, the situation is unacceptable. She does not understand why no facilitator has noticed and reported the situation. «Good job, com [communauté de communes, NDLR] an EJ’N [l’association Éducation jeunesse Aisne] to only recruit good-for-nothings. You entrust your child to people who are supposedly competent to look after him and you get him back in a pitiful state. A disgrace.”wrote the mother on Facebook, before attaching photos of her son’s injuries.
Facebook screenshot
The community of communes says it is “shocked”
Contacted by The Figarothe Sommes Sud Ouest community of communes, which mandated the EJ’N to offer a trip to children from the Picardy region, assures that it was informed of the situation after the publication of this message on social networks. “We are deeply shocked by this testimony and take this situation with the utmost seriousness. As soon as we became aware of this situation, we contacted the family concerned to express our support and gather initial information.”notes the community of communes.
Above all, Cécile Lemaire blames herself for not having seen or felt her child’s distress. During the stay, the children were not allowed to have a phone with them. News was then relayed daily to the families via an application, managed by the animation team. “We felt bad at the time because we said to ourselves, if we had paid more attention to the photos, we would have seen and we could have called. But we didn’t think to zoom in…”confided Cécile Lemaire to France 3. The mother said she had filed a complaint.
