Chloé Lagadou 7:27 a.m., March 17, 2024

Threats against teachers continue to make headlines.

While in Dijon, a school principal was threatened with a kitchen knife, the anxiety of the teaching staff is at its peak.

For parents' unions, it is urgent to better support students to avoid such situations. 

The police custody of the young schoolboy who threatened his principal with a kitchen knife on Friday in a college in Dijon has been extended.

This third grade student had been excluded from Édouard Herriot college in Chenôve for disciplinary problems.

A letter in which allusions are made to the 2015 attacks and a hostage situation was found on him.

Fortunately, the anti-intrusion device triggered by the main one worked and no one was injured.

But there, there is always astonishment.

Very shocked, some students are now even dreading returning to class tomorrow, Monday.

Solutions implemented...

On the teaching staff side, this affair only brings to mind others.

A principal threatened with death with a knife, a teacher beaten, a teacher killed… These events are repeated in schools.

“The situation is very anxiety-provoking for teachers, but also for students and parents. It is within the reach of anyone to bring a kitchen knife hidden in their bag. is worrying", warns Laurent Zameczkowski, spokesperson for the Federation of Parents of Public Education Students, speaking to Europe 1.

To ensure the safety of everyone in school buildings, several solutions are put in place, such as intrusion alarms or video protection systems.

But for the spokesperson, we must strengthen support for students.

...But a lack of support for students

“Prevention is the key word,” he insists.

“Today, there is one educational assistant for around a hundred middle school students. We need to strengthen this adult presence to be able to detect all these situations and any type of violence early! We need better support students to prevent them from being either in a situation of intense despair, or from being manipulated by others, in order to avoid a new tragedy", he concludes. 

Laurent Zameczkowski assures us: more human resources are needed, such as school nurses or national education psychologists, who are still too few in number in schools.