Lionel Gougelot// Photo credits: Arnaud Le Vu / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 13:42 p.m., May 26, 2023

Four minors were indicted for "school harassment leading to suicide" after the suicide of a 13-year-old girl in Vendin-le-Vieil in the Pas-de-Calais on May 12. The emotion is still very strong in front of the former establishment of the teenager.

The emotion is great in front of the Bracke-Desrousseaux college in Vendin-le-Vieil where Lindsay, the 13-year-old girl who committed suicide on May 12, was schooled. Four minors were indicted for "school bullying" potentially leading to the suicide of this teenager.

A traumatized teenager

According to the testimonies of other students, young Lindsay was experiencing real trauma. At the Collège Bracke-Rousseaux in Vendin-le-Vieil, dozens of bouquets of white flowers, balloons, T-shirts with messages of tribute and condolences adorn the gates of the establishment. A white march was held Wednesday afternoon in Lindsay's memory.

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The violence suffered by the teenager scandalizes one of her classmates in the fourth grade. "Since the beginning of the year, she has been harassed physically, morally, she could not take it anymore. They fought in the street and there was a video on the internet. It's not normal for someone to do that. He was still an incredible person," says a classmate.

Collective powerlessness

The Ministry of Education had been alerted by Lindsay's mother and stepfather. The rectorate had carried out a mission within the college which had resulted in the exclusion of two students. This was not enough to end Lindsay's ordeal.

"We knew a little, we saw what was happening in the courtyard, we saw a little on the networks. No matter how hard we try to do something, it didn't work. We didn't know what was really going on, it was between her and the girls. We knew that Lindsay had filed letters and was talking to the CPE but not much happened," says a third-grader.

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Lindsay's parents and peers feel a form of collective helplessness to respond to the teenager's distress. Violence on social media was impossible to contain. Parents may not have been sufficiently heard by the National Education either.