"The Ministry of the Interior and Overseas regularly studies the impact of certain religious holidays on the functioning of public services, and especially within the school sphere," Backès said in a statement.
"It is in this context that an assessment of the absenteeism rate observed on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, on April 21, could be requested, in some academies, to school heads," the statement said.
"No nominative data was requested or recorded at any time," said Ms. Backès, who says that the initiative was not a desire to "file" students according to their faith.
In the Toulouse academy, police officers asked the heads of schools in Toulouse, by email, to tell them the number of students absent on the day of Eid al-Fitr.
Associations, trade union or political leaders have expressed concern about this police initiative, some like the former socialist deputy Jean-Christophe Cambadelis evoking "a file in the whole city".
The request of the police is "particularly shocking in that it associates Muslim religious practice with a question of security," said SOS Racism, recalling that the request to schools came from the departmental directorate of public security (DDSP).
The Sud Education union, for its part, denounced "Islamophobic excesses" in the administration.
"AESH colleagues and agents were refused leave of absence," for the day of the holiday, unlike teachers, he said.
Union of Mosques of France for its part calls for a "proper investigation"
"Families must be duly informed and reassured of the future of the information given by some heads of establishments who, unfortunately, responded to the request of the police," said the Union of Mosques of France.
The request of the police had been made directly to the establishments concerned, without the approval of the rectorate of Toulouse. "Under no circumstances do we conduct investigations of this kind," Mostafa Fourar, rector of the academy, told AFP.
A source close to the case had evoked to AFP a "clumsiness" in the formulation of the request relayed by the police referents of the National Education for the benefit of territorial intelligence.
© 2023 AFP