School bullying is at the heart of a new bill in the Assembly.
MEPs are due to adopt a proposal on Wednesday to make this phenomenon a new offense.
A text co-signed by the three groups of the majority LREM, Modem and Agir.
It comes a little over three weeks after a series of measures announced by Emmanuel Macron, including the creation of an application to help victims of cyberstalking, the strengthening of parental control or the multiplication of places where young people can listen.
"We will never get used to the fact that children's lives are broken," said Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, at the start of the debates at first reading at the Palais Bourbon.
Combating harassment, in the name of the value of "fraternity", is "a way of asserting the principles of the Republic", he argued.
School bullying aggravated by new technologies
Almost one in ten students would be affected each year by school bullying which can push the victim to end his life, as evidenced by several recent dramas that have moved public opinion such as the suicide of young Dinah in the Haut- Rhine in October.
This phenomenon is old but has been clearly aggravated by the development of new information and communication technologies, often passing under the radar of parents and adults.
"The group effects are amplified" and "there is no longer any limit, neither time nor space", underlines the author of the bill Erwan Balanant (MoDem).
Up to ten years' imprisonment and 150,000 euros
The bill addresses the issues of prevention, initial or continuing training for adults to prevent and deal with cases of harassment. Digital platforms will also have an obligation to moderate content, a "duty of vigilance" according to Jean-Michel Blanquer. Its flagship measure consists of the creation of a specific offense of bullying at school - this was hitherto punishable under other counts including bullying.
School bullying will be punishable by three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros when it causes total incapacity for work (ITT) less than or equal to eight days, or even if it has not resulted in ITT.
The author's age will be taken into account.
The measure is toughened if the ITT exceeds 8 days, and may even reach ten years' imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros when the facts have led the victim to commit suicide or to attempt to do so.
The left judges the "very high penalties"
Erwan Balanant defends himself "to be repressive" or a "law of emotion", and wants "to engage the whole of society". But the left has strong reservations, judging that "very high sanctions" are "not the appropriate response", according to socialist Michele Victory. The majority pour into the "illusory and demagogic escalation", in the eyes of Sabine Rubin (LFI). These elected officials rather ask "a plan and means for school medicine".
If the penal intervenes, "it means that it is already too late", underlined Grégory Labille (UDI), a former teacher who pleaded to break the "taboo" of harassment in certain establishments.
Erwan Balanant, who had already amended the bill on "school of confidence" in 2019 to include the issue of harassment, also broadens with his text the right to "schooling without school harassment" to private institutions and to higher education.
The bill recognizes "the fact that bullying is not only between students" but can also be - more rare - the act of an adult, he notes.
LR deputies support a bill which “represents an expected development” even if it remains “perfectible”, according to Emmanuelle Anthoine.
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