Senatorial Report Urges State to Defend Secularism in Schools Against Threats and Attacks – Recommendations and Findings Revealed

A senatorial report from a commission of inquiry highlighted, this Wednesday, March 6, the “terrible loneliness” of teachers in the face of threats and attacks, urging the State to initiate a “proactive approach” and National Education to ” take back control” to defend secularism at school.

The report by senators François-Noël Buffet (LR) and Laurent Lafon (UDI) proposes 38 recommendations to “promote this French secularism, better train educational staff and provide them with the tools necessary to carry out their mission”, detailed Laurent Lafon during a press conference.

The commission of inquiry, launched in response to the request of the family of Samuel Paty and further strengthened after the assassination of Dominique Bernard in Arras, focused formally on the “reporting and treatment of pressures, threats and attacks including teachers are victims.

READ ALSO: Principal threatened with death: “The law on secularism is perceived as coercive by young people”

A “wall” erected between teachers and authorities

During their work, the parliamentarians notably interviewed Mickaëlle Paty, the sister of the teacher murdered in 2020. “The most striking observation is the terrible loneliness experienced by members of the educational staff in the face of a daily life marked by tensions and conflicts”, was alarmed François-Noël Buffet.

Laurent Lafon noted a growing “distrust” between those on the ground and their administrative hierarchy, evoking a “wall” erected between teachers and authorities such as the rectorate.

READ ALSO: Leave or stay? The underside of the crisis at the Scientific Council of National Education

The authors of the report, from the majority alliance of the right and the center in the Senate, propose several measures on the training aspect, so that National Education “takes back control” over the training of teachers, by “not making initial training more dependent on the university”.

“Harmonization of sanctions at national level”

They also propose to “review the disciplinary corpus” in the event of threats and other pressures, through a “harmonization of sanctions at the national level”. Another recommendation is to have students’ parents sign a “parents’ charter” each year, in which “the fact will be recalled that teaching cannot be contested”. The creation of “dedicated structures for poly-excluded” or “highly disruptive” students is also advanced. More symbolic, they advocate the organization of a compulsory day of tribute to murdered teachers in each establishment at the start of the school year.

The senators also propose various measures to streamline the legal process for agents who are victims of attacks or threats, such as allowing the administration to file a complaint itself in place of the agent concerned, who sometimes hesitates to do so for fear of retaliation.

This senatorial report was unanimously adopted in committee in the Senate, but part of the left abstained. It was presented a few days after the online death threats received by a principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school in Paris who had asked a student to remove her veil. An event which “illustrated the holes in the racket” of the 2004 law on religious symbols in schools, pointed out Senator Laurent Lafon.

2024-03-06 21:01:35
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