in Doubs, a teacher threatened with death for showing caricatures to his students

CHARLIE HEBDO – Facts which revive memories of the assassination of Samuel Paty. A 13-year-old girl was taken into custody for having threatened to kill a teacher who had shown religious caricatures from Charlie Hebdo to his students in a college in Doubs, the Montbéliard prosecutor said on Tuesday, January 21.

The schoolgirl, who claims to have wanted “make a joke”is summoned in February before the prosecutor’s delegate who will serve him with a probative criminal warning.

Teacher’s complaint

On January 8, the day after the national tribute paid to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, a history and geography teacher from the Montbéliard metropolitan area presented his 4th grade students with several caricatures from the satirical, religious newspaper – an imam , a priest, a rabbi – and politicians, prosecutor Paul-Édouard Lallois told AFP.

A student in the class did not appreciate the caricatures, but “the civics lesson went normally”he specifies.

A week later, “the same young girl came to find the teacher to tell him that a high school student wants to come and kill him because he showed the caricatures”continues the magistrate. Worried, the teacher filed a complaint and the school also took legal action.

“Not radicalized at all”

The Montbéliard prosecutor opened proceedings to “death threat to a teacher” and the schoolgirl was heard in police custody.

“She immediately admitted having made these comments, but she assured that it was a bad joke that she bitterly regretted”notes Paul-Édouard Lallois. “ She is a totally immature young girl who does not realize the significance of her words”according to him.

The schoolgirl and her family “are not radicalized at all” et “are unknown to the courts”adds the magistrate, noting that “all state services quickly mobilized to ensure that we did not miss a Samuel Paty type case”a teacher beheaded in 2020 by a radical Chechen Islamist after presenting a caricature of Mohammed in class.

On X (formerly Twitter), the Minister of National Education Élisabeth Borne brought everything « [s]we support the teacher at the Besançon academy who was threatened with death after showing Charlie Hebdo caricatures.” And the minister also congratulated “the rectorate and the establishment for their responsiveness”.

The young girl’s lawyer considered that the facts were not characterized, but for the prosecutor, “even if she did not intend to threaten with her words, their exact content can only be such as to generate a feeling of fear in the person receiving them, particularly given the context”.

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