Solène Delinger / Photo credit: VIRGINIE LEFOUR / BELGA MAG / Belga via AFP 18:21 p.m., October 03, 2023

In an interview with our colleagues of "franceinfo", Christophe Willem confided on the school bullying of which he was victim at the college. Like many victims, the singer did not dare to talk about what he was experiencing. He hopes that the government's recently announced anti-bullying plan will bear fruit.

A moving testimony... While the government has just announced a plan to fight against bullying, the singer Christophe Willem recalled his own experience as a bullied schoolboy in an interview with our colleagues from franceinfo. " My daily life at that time was a lot along the walls. I was effeminate, I had a high-pitched voice, more than today, I was very stigmatized. I was a bit vulgarly 'the p*d* of the school'. So it goes through insults, sometimes beatings, going to school with a lump in the stomach and saying 'am I going to spend a quiet day today?'", says the interpreter of PS: I love you.

"You are afraid to talk to your loved ones"

Like many victims of school bullying, Christophe Willem did not dare to talk about what he was experiencing in the playground. The feeling of shame prevented him from confiding in himself, even with his parents. "Talking about it with your loved ones is very delicate. When you are told every day in the schoolyard 'dirty', that you are beaten, you build yourself as a teenager by saying to yourself 'if I'm in love with a boy, that's a problem' because I'm being attacked for that. You are afraid to talk to your loved ones to have the double penalty of being rejected by your loved ones for the same reasons, "says Christophe Willem.

"The laws of the Republic must apply"

For the singer, it is therefore quite normal that a bully student was arrested last month after threatening to kill a classmate and making homophobic remarks. "I'm not shocked. I think all the people who are shocked by this have never experienced what it's like to be bullied at school. Measures must be taken commensurate with the problem. When you look at the number of suicides... I find it amazing! How can we be offended to come and arrest people who push others to suicide? (...) The laws of the Republic must apply, institutions must be equipped with the right staff to take concrete action on the ground. Otherwise, they are only announcement effects and it falls like a bellows, "concludes the star.

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Elisabeth Borne recently announced several legal measures against school bullying. Prosecutors will now be seized in case of report of harassment. Harassers will also have their mobile phones confiscated and may be banned from social media.