France to charge girl after school director received death threats over her false accusations

“I have finally made the decision tonight to resign from my duties as director for my own safety, that of my family and the school,” reads a letter from the director. He has been in education for 45 years, seven years as director at the Maurice Ravel Lycée, in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. But he was apparently not allowed to end his career on a high note. Out of fear for his own life, that of his family but also for the school, he quits with immediate effect.

At the end of February, he stopped three students at the school gate who wanted to enter the school wearing a headscarf. But French law prohibits that. And so he asked the girls to take off their headscarves within the walls of the school. Two obeyed, a third refused. An argument then arose between the girl and the director and the student left. The director informed the parents of the incident and a conversation with the student in question would follow. The normal procedure.

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But in the days that followed, both the school and the director received serious threats. Even death threats from extremists, which were reported to the hotline of the Ministry of the Interior. Schools are required to do this in France.

Police are now patrolling the area around the school. Because since the murders of teachers Samuel Paty, who was beheaded in the street in a suburb of Paris in 2020, and the murder of Dominique Bernard who was killed five months ago at his school in Arras, the French government is no longer taking any risks .

READ ALSO. Beheading of teacher Samuel Paty: anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office France requests trial of 14 people

No evidence whatsoever

Justice confirms that two people have now been arrested in connection with the death threats. Their identities have not been released, but the Ministry of Education says they had no connection with the school. Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet came to the school herself to support the staff. But the pressure on the director and his family had apparently become so great that he himself is now resigning. (Read more below the photo)

“I have ultimately made the decision to resign from my positions,” he explained in a letter he wrote on March 22. “I am leaving after seven years, rich and intense, at your side, and after 45 years in public education,” he wrote, thanking his colleagues for the support they had given him over the past three weeks. The director, who wishes to remain anonymous, continues to swear that he is innocent and that he has not laid a finger on the students. “I only asked her to take off her headscarf. Because the law obliges me to do so,” he says.

“I didn’t touch her. I only asked her to take off her headscarf. Because the law obliges me to do so”

Director of the Maurice Ravel Lycée

Outrage

There is great outrage in France, especially among teaching staff, after this umpteenth incident in which concrete death threats are made. After the girl’s family filed a complaint, the matter was investigated. But that yielded nothing. There were no witnesses who had seen anything and the camera images in the school also do not show that the director had used physical violence.

READ ALSO. Terrorist threats with beheading video sent to French schools

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has now ordered a complaint to be filed against the student and her parents for making false accusations. Politicians from both the left and right expressed outrage that a respected teacher’s career had to be ended by an online hate campaign.

Last week, about 30 other schools in the Paris area received similar threats, accompanied by a video of a beheading. Although researchers are obliged to take the threats seriously, they cannot rule out that they are part of a Russian disinformation campaign, it said.