Death threats against a high school principal: the prosecution appeals after the controversial debate

Six hundred euros fine and the obligation to follow a citizenship course. This is the conviction handed down this Tuesday by the court against a 27-year-old man for having threatened to kill the former principal of the Maurice Ravel high school. Just two days after this controversial decision, the Paris prosecutor's office appealed. A very insufficient conviction according to Francis Lec, the lawyer for the head of the establishment: “A stunning judgment which trivializes hate speech against school leaders who are threatened with death in the exercise of their duties.”

Last February, an altercation broke out between the former principal and a student who refused to remove her veil in the establishment. He was then threatened on social networks. The maximum penalty for public provocation to commit a crime is 50 prisons and a fine of 45,000 euros. So how can we explain such a discrepancy with this conviction? “I understand that it may come as a surprise, but in fact the magistrate must make a decision based on the elements of the file and on the personality. Has he already been convicted? Is he known to the services of justice and police? Is it integrated? clarifies Valérie Dervieux, magistrate at the Paris Court of Appeal and regional delegate of the SNM FO Magistrates Unit.

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The affair provoked a reaction even from the Minister of National Education, Anne Genetet. This Wednesday, she raises her voice on the microphone of 1 p.m. on TF1, in the video visible at the top of this article: “Faced with these situations of aggression against teachers, it is a collective responsibility of the entire society. When I say the entire society, I also include the judges who must understand that the decisions they take, “is a message sent to all our fellow citizens, including the educational community.” The minister wishes to modify the law so that National Education, as an institution, can file a complaint alongside its agents. A welcomed initiative, but for the unions, justice must be even more severe. “That’s not what’s going to change the decision. We actually have to think about it and see how we can imagine something that would go in the direction of systematization or a planned sentence,” believes Bruno Bonkiewcz, general secretary of the national union of national education management personnel. A second trial should therefore be held in the coming months.