Nothing goes well at the Antoine Bordelle high school in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne). Since mid-September, and a remark made by a teacher to a student wearing an abaya, the situation has worsened. So much, reveals this Friday France Bleu on its websitethat the establishment was placed under police protection, but so was the teacher’s home.
We need to go back to September 23 to understand how the situation got there. That day, a 17-year-old high school girl is wearing an abaya. It is a long dress, traditionally found in Muslim countries of the Middle East and the Maghreb. She says she was teased by her Spanish teacher in class about this dress.
At the end of the lesson, the high school student and the teacher are talking. France Bleu then recounts that the former films the latter without his consent. The teacher scolds her about her dress. “She will see what Allah will do to her,” said the high school girl in this video, which was later broadcast on the TikTok network. The professor’s face is blurred, his voice is changed.
Frequent use of the abaya
What should we understand from this video? It was a question of “words for the teacher to finally be sanctioned, absolutely not in a radical way, but in a hierarchical or even judicial way”, defends one of the girl’s lawyers on the radio. “These remarks were interpreted harshly, and earned her to be considered somewhat radicalized,” she regrets.
But the situation became very tense when, upon returning from vacation, the high school girl invited her classmates, in protest, to come with an abaya. According to the rectorate, this movement has been followed little or not at all, without however hiding the “phenomenon”. “Out of 2,500 students at the Bourdelle high school, around twenty girls have been wearing the abaya since the beginning of the school year,” explains the rector of the Toulouse academy Mostafa Fourar. “We have put in place a procedure that automatically sanctions any attempt to gradually weaken secularism”, he points out.
Wearing the abaya is not prohibited by law, but it can constitute an attack on secularism “if the student wears it regularly, assumed as a symbol of a religious identity”, explains the rector of the Toulouse Academy. “In public schools, boarding schools and high schools, it is forbidden to wear insignia or clothes in which students apparently show a religious affiliation”, he points out the 2004 lawgoverning religious symbols in schools.
Filed two complaints
The young woman, as she wears this dress “systematically claiming it”, has been the subject of a disciplinary proceeding. She too was heard by the carabinieri for violation of privacy, after the complaint of the professor and the head of the institute for the diffusion of the video. “This recording is illegal and its diffusion reinforces the dangerousness of the act”, justifies the rector to France Bleu.
If she left the institution since Monday, the high school student also filed a complaint for discriminatory remarks. “You suffered a lot before this story due to recurring reflections of both the teaching staff and the administrative staff. And that day she felt deeply humiliated », explains her lawyer.
France Bleu reveals that, “as a precaution”, the establishment is now under police protection during entry and exit times. Although there is no “proven threat” to the professor, according to the rectorate her home has also been placed under police protection.
In October, there were 720 complaints about attacks on secularism, the education ministry reported on Wednesday. This figure has more than doubled since September, with still a high proportion of incidents related to the wearing of religious clothing. 40% of the incidents recorded in October are for “wearing religious signs and clothes”, compared to 54% in September.
