Teacher beaten, student referred… What happened in this high school in Tourcoing?

The student from the Sévigné high school in Tourcoing (North), in police custody since Monday, October 7 in the evening for having hit a teacher at the establishment who had asked her to remove her veil, was to be referred on Wednesday, October 9 to the court of Lille to be tried in immediate appearance.

In the high school – not known, according to the Snes-FSU du Nord, to be the scene of particular tensions over secularism – a crisis unit was set up. Classes were suspended on Tuesday and Wednesday to allow “time for discussion and work” for staff, indicated the Lille rectorate. The teacher, who benefits from functional protection, filed a complaint.

Unanimous condemnation of the unions

The events occurred on Monday 6, around 4:30 p.m. The 18-year-old student had put her veil back on just before leaving the establishment. The teacher asked her to remove it and, after receiving insults, allegedly opposed the young girl’s release, wishing to identify her identity.

It was then that the student slapped the teacher, who responded, before receiving several blows. The incident triggered numerous reactions, even in the National Assembly where, Tuesday afternoon, the Minister of National Education, Anne Genetet, denounced “an act that challenges our secular school” and who “defies the Republic”.

On the union side, the condemnation is, of course, unanimous. Secularism referent at SNPDEN-Unsa (main management staff union), Didier Georges nevertheless recalls that such incidents remain rare and that problems of this nature are “generally resolved within an hour and through dialogue” – even, as he had done himself, by installing… mirrors at the school door, thus preventing the young girls from having to cross the courtyard after putting their veils back in the toilets. For him, we “cannot consider that today we have a major problem of violence linked to the ban on wearing the veil, the abaya or the kamis”.

The trade unionist also emphasizes that, due to lack of sufficient staff, “it is sometimes difficult to put adults, CPE or supervisors, everywhere where we should”to intervene in this type of case.

Her colleague Sophie Vénétitay, from Snes-FSU, recalled on BFMTV that in the aftermath of such incidents, the school and teachers are “sometimes left alone, sometimes helpless in the face of all the ills of society”. A way of indicating that big declarations will no longer be enough.