A few days after showing the caricatures, a 13-year-old student went to see the teacher to threaten him. Faced with the complaint filed by the teacher, the prosecutor quickly opened legal action to respond to the facts.
The matter was taken very seriously and dealt with quickly. On January 8, in a college in the country of Montbéliard, in Doubs, a history and geography teacher, during a civic education class, decided to show several caricatures published in Charlie Hebdo. The date is chosen symbolically, one day after the tenth anniversary of the attack which decimated the editorial staff of the satirical weekly.
In the class, the students are attentive and no incidents take place. But last Thursday, January 16, a 13 and a half year old student, at the end of a lesson, came to see the teacher in question, to threaten him with death. “A high school student is going to come and kill you,” she told him, explains Paul-Edouard Lallois, public prosecutor of Montbéliard to Paris Match.
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The student summoned the next morning and placed in police custody
The professor quickly reported the threat to the management of the establishment. While reporting to the prosecutor, the principal summons the student to her office. “In front, she admits to having made these remarks but mentions a joke thrown, thinking that it would have been taken in the tone of humor,” specifies Paul-Edouard Lallois. The latter was temporarily excluded and a disciplinary council was to rule on her exclusion this Monday.
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The child’s mother is also summoned by management. If she condemns the comments made by her daughter, she justifies them as “the words of a child”. “But at 13 and a half years old, you are criminally responsible, which I immediately recognized,” breathes the prosecutor, who immediately opens a procedure on the counts of “threats against anyone with a public service mission” after the complaint of the teacher in question. “All this was to have a legal framework to be able to quickly hear the young girl,” he adds.
On Friday, she was therefore summoned to the police station to be heard in custody, assisted by a lawyer. “She once again recognizes the content of the remarks, but explains that she did not realize what they would imply,” indicates the magistrate. Subsequently, she therefore contests the offense with which she is accused.
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“I will be criticized for having been too harsh, but I accept it”
However, the prosecutor wants to mark the occasion. “These comments, in such circumstances, are likely to instigate fear and the feeling of fear,” regrets Paul-Edouard Lallois.
The latter decides to issue him with a probationary criminal warning. The objective, “that she is reported in the police files and to establish a criminal record file”, insists the magistrate, who explains that the young girl is now “on file”.
For him, in this type of matter, there is no question of letting time pass. “We must mark the occasion because this type of event is serious. We must not waste time so as not to trivialize this,” says the magistrate.
I may be criticized for going too quickly or being harsh, but I fully accept this penal policy.
Paul-Edouard Lallois
From now on, the young girl must be summoned before a delegate of the prosecutor next month.
