Teachers at Blaise-Cendrars High School Summoned After Viral Video Exposes Living Conditions: Interview Looked Like a “Trap”

For appearing on a viral video shot by their students and intended to denounce the living conditions in this high school in Seine-Saint-Denis, four teachers were summoned by their head of establishment and the departmental directorate of National Education. An interview that looks like a “trap”.

Wednesday March 13, while they were going to their workplace, four teachers from the Blaise-Cendrars high school in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis) were surprised to learn of their summons to their principal’s office this Friday. March 13, for individual interviews in the presence of the head of the establishment, therefore, and a representative of the Directorate of Departmental National Education Services (DSDEN). What do these four teachers have in common? Their appearance in a TikTok video published on March 7 at the initiative of high school students. This featured, for almost two minutes, the difficulties encountered every day in the establishment. Lack of heating in classrooms, dilapidated ceilings, lack of tables and chairs, teachers not replaced: a summary of the problems denounced for three weeks now by the educational community of the department.

Mélissa, one of the teachers concerned, sees this summons as “a gross attempt at intimidation”. “The mobilization in 93 is taking an extremely rare turn and the authorities did not expect it. They are afraid and try to discourage those who are mobilizing or those who are hesitant to join us,” she says. Asked by AFP, the Créteil academy considered it “completely normal for a head of establishment who notices a problem with the positioning of staff under his authority to summon him”.

“Filmed and edited from A to Z by the students”

The French teacher, who has been on strike for fourteen days since the start of the movement on February 26, describes a feeling of “trap” when she discovers that the summons does not mention any specific reason. And the fact that the interview was, according to her, “conducted from start to finish by the DSDEN advisor” testifies to the involvement of the rectorate. Very quickly, his interlocutor would have raised two grievances against him. A “non-respect of the image rights of students” on the one hand and a failure “of the duty of confidentiality of education officials” on the other, recalls Mélissa.

Reasons for indictment that she firmly contests. “This video was thought up, filmed and edited from A to Z by the students. We were only invited to participate,” she explains. Contacted by Libération, one of the students behind the video confirmed that she had met some of her teachers to “ask them to describe on camera a problem they encountered while working at Blaise-high school. Cendrars. “In this context, I do not see how I could have contravened the image rights of students who themselves chose to film themselves,” adds Mélissa.

“A sort of standard of the struggle”

The teacher also brushes aside any breach of her duty of confidentiality. “All of the elements recounted and highlighted in the video are facts and not opinions,” she judges. In the video, she only appears for a few seconds to explain that after she went on maternity leave, she was not replaced and that her students did not have a French teacher for six months the year they were bin. Furthermore, interviewed by Libération in 2019, Antony Taillefait, professor specializing in civil servant law, recalled that if public officials have in fact since the Third Republic had an obligation of obedience and loyalty towards their institution, this “does not mean that they do not have the opportunity to express themselves! All you need is a correct tone and reasoned criticism.”

If the Créteil academy assured the AFP that “no disciplinary procedure has been initiated” and that there was “no question here of the exercise of union rights, and even less of a desire to undermine it”, Mélissa notes however that during her interview, she was told that a report “of the day’s interviews will be added to the academic files of the four teachers in question”. A document that she refused to sign, and to which another report could subsequently be added, this time written by the teachers and their union representatives.

Faced with the scale that the affair is now taking, the teacher prefers to see the positive in it. “No one expected the video to get millions of views, me first. The students succeeded in making our problems visible and making Blaise-Cendrars a sort of standard of the teachers’ struggle in 93.” After a new day of action in the department this Friday, March 15, the inter-union is once again calling for a strike next week.

2024-03-16 02:51:16
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