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A Paris faculty principal’s choice to step down after he obtained on-line dying threats over an incident involving a Muslim pupil’s head scarf has prompted nationwide outrage this week in France.
Camera crews have descended on the college and the federal government stated it deliberate to sue the coed, accusing her of constructing false accusations — the most recent flashpoint in a debate over French secularism and the therapy of the nation’s Muslim minority.
Officials say the incident occurred on Feb. 28 on the Lycée Maurice-Ravel when the college’s principal requested three college students to take away their head scarves on faculty grounds. Two of the scholars complied, however a 3rd refused, inflicting an “altercation,” in response to the Paris prosecutor’s workplace.
Since 2004, center and highschool college students in France have been barred from carrying “ostentatious” symbols which have a transparent non secular that means, like a Catholic cross, a Jewish skullcap or a Muslim head scarf.
The full particulars of the altercation are unclear. But the incident shortly drew nationwide consideration in France, the place the perceived encroachment of Islam within the public faculty system is an especially delicate subject.
The nation stays deeply scarred by the killing of two schoolteachers by Islamist extremists in recent times.
The pupil advised investigators that the principal had pushed her and hit her arm, however the Paris prosecutor’s workplace stated {that a} grievance she had filed accusing the principal of assault had been dropped over a scarcity of proof. The principal filed a separate go well with accusing the coed of intimidating a public official, the prosecutor’s workplace stated.
The authorities and politicians throughout the spectrum have defended the principal and disputed the accusations of violence made in opposition to him.
French officers haven’t publicly recognized the principal or the coed. The regional schooling authority for Paris stated that the coed dropped out of the college shortly after the incident.
The controversy started to attract better nationwide consideration final week after the principal determined to step down. In a message to highschool employees that was shared with the French media, he stated he had determined to depart over considerations about his private security and the college’s personal safety.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal stated that the threats in opposition to the principal have been “unacceptable” and introduced on Wednesday that the federal government would file a authorized grievance in opposition to the coed, accusing her of making an attempt to “intimidate” the principal by making wrongful accusations of violence in opposition to him, resulting in a wave of on-line dying threats.
“Laïcité is consistently being put to the check,” Mr. Attal advised a nationwide tv station on Wednesday in regards to the case, referring to France’s model of secularism, which ensures freedom of conscience but in addition the strict neutrality of the state and of some public areas.
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace stated it had opened an investigation into the dying threats and “cyber-harassment” confronted by the principal. Three folks have already been arrested, and certainly one of them will face trial subsequent month, the prosecutor’s workplace stated.
Mr. Attal, who met with the principal on Wednesday, stated that the principal was scheduled to retire in June however had determined to step down earlier due to the threats. The prime minister added that the state can be unwavering in its assist for “all of those that are on the entrance strains of those assaults on laïcité.”
In his former place as schooling minister, Mr. Attal had spearheaded a ban in colleges of the abaya, a loosefitting, full-length gown worn by some Muslim ladies.
Nicole Belloubet, Mr. Attal’s successor on the ministry, visited the college in early March to specific assist for the principal, and he or she assured lawmakers this week that he had been given full authorized and ethical help. Police officers have been additionally deployed in entrance of the college as a precautionary measure after the incident occurred, she stated.
In a video revealed by the Collective for Countering Islamophobia in Europe — a Belgium-based activist group that was created after an analogous one was disbanded by the federal government in France — the coed stated that the altercation occurred as she was leaving faculty.
Speaking along with her face blurred to hide her id, the coed stated that she was beginning to cowl her head with a hat as she ready to placed on her head scarf when the principal shouted at her to take away it.
Before she may comply, she stated, the principal “pushed me violently” and “hit me arduous on the arm,” then he tried to pull her to his workplace till one other pupil intervened, she stated.
The Collective for Countering Islamophobia in Europe condemned the dying threats in opposition to the principal however accused the French authorities of “fueling a local weather of battle inside colleges, pitting lecturers, pupils and households in opposition to one another.”
“We need to reiterate our dedication to the combat in opposition to all types of harassment and discrimination, particularly towards Muslim college students, who’re beneath undue stress within the present local weather,” the group stated in an announcement.
For many in France, the case echoed the chain response that led to the killing of Samuel Paty in 2020. The historical past teacher was beheaded in a northwestern suburb of Paris by an Islamist assailant after he confirmed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his college students in an try to illustrate free speech.
Mr. Paty was murdered lower than two weeks after a schoolgirl lied about attending his class and made false accusations in opposition to him — setting off a spiral of on-line rumors that finally put the killer on his path.
The killing final yr of Dominique Bernard, a French literature teacher who was stabbed to dying at a highschool in northern France by a radicalized former pupil, put the nation additional on edge.
In an interview with French tv on Thursday, Mickaëlle Paty, Mr. Paty’s sister, praised the federal government’s swift response to the incident at Lycée Maurice-Ravel. But Ms. Paty, who desires the federal government to be held answerable for failing to guard her brother, stated there was nonetheless a “lack of know-how” of the threats confronted by lecturers.
A French Senate report revealed this month discovered there was a worrying rise of insults, threats and bodily violence in opposition to lecturers over the previous few years, and it urged the federal government to extend safety and colleges and to make it simpler for employees to flag worrying incidents to the Education Ministry.
A lone digital camera crew was nonetheless lingering in entrance of the college on Thursday, however the ambiance was calm. Several college students stated that they’d not witnessed the incident themselves, however have been stunned by the nationwide consideration it had obtained and the rumors it had spawned.
“The guidelines are the foundations, all of us signed them initially of the yr: it says the pinnacle scarf is banned inside the college,” stated Yacine Kone, 16. But, she added, the principal “shouldn’t put his hand on a pupil, even when it’s simply to the touch her.”
Ralph Modisa, 15, stated the principal had a superb popularity with college students. “People are getting a bit too fired up over nothing,” he added.
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting.
