“Collective failure”, “defeat of the State”: the announcement of the departure of the principal of the Parisian high school Maurice-Ravel, threatened with death after an altercation with a student to make her remove her veil, sparks a wave of indignation . The head of the establishment went to Matignon on Wednesday March 27. 

The Prime Minister was keen to “provide his support to the principal and the educational community” by receiving him in the afternoon, his entourage indicated before this meeting where Gabriel Attal was accompanied by his Minister of National Education , Nicole Belloubet.

The Prime Minister estimated in mid-March that secularism in schools "is threatened", and said he was "committed to full respect" of this principle, while its application in schools continues to cause a stir, twenty years after the law prohibiting the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols in establishments.

In the evening, the head of government announced that the State "was going to file a complaint" for "slanderous denunciation" against the student who had accused the principal of her high school of having assaulted her after she refused to remove her veil.

“The State, the institution, will always stand alongside its agents, those who are on the front line facing these attacks on secularism, facing these attempts at Islamist entryism into our educational establishments,” argued the head of government on TF1, the day after the announcement of the departure of the principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school, who has been threatened with death since the incident.

I decided that the State was going to file a complaint for slanderous denunciation against the student who threatened the principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school.



This is a clear signal that I want to send: we will always stand alongside our teachers, our school leaders and those who… pic.twitter.com/hFiU9VUFYW

— Gabriel Attal (@GabrielAttal) March 27, 2024

At the beginning of March, Nicole Belloubet went to the Maurice-Ravel school campus, in the 20th arrondissement, to provide her "support" to the head of the establishment, deploring the "unacceptable attacks" of which he had been the target on social networks since the altercation on February 28 with the BTS student.

An investigation was opened in Paris for cyberharassment, after death threats against the principal were made on the Internet. A 26-year-old young man from Hauts-de-Seine was arrested and must be tried on April 23 in Paris for having threatened to kill him on the Internet.

“These attacks recently caused two victims”

"Secularism" is "constantly put to the test. And we see, there is a form of Islamist entryism which manifests itself in particular in our educational establishments", declared Gabriel Attal, Wednesday evening on TF1.

“This entryism, these attacks recently caused two victims in the National Education family, Dominique Bernard and Samuel Paty,” he said. These two teachers were killed in Islamist attacks, Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in October 2020 and Dominique Bernard in Arras in October 2023.

In the afternoon, Gabriel Attal paid tribute to the principal "because he has great dignity in this ordeal. He was due to retire in June. (...) Some advised him, for reasons security reasons, to leave a little earlier," said Gabriel Attal.

He “simply did his job.” “He asked a young woman to apply the law, that is to say, to remove her veil in the school establishment. This young woman refused him and, worse still, she tried to intimidate him accusing him of molesting her or of violence,” he said.

“These accusations” were “then relayed on social networks”, including “by certain elected officials, I am thinking of a member of La France insoumise”, and “gave rise to death threats against this principal ", he said.

“This is what 'no waves' leads to”

Two complaints had, moreover, been filed: one by the student "for violence not resulting in incapacity for work", and one by the principal "for an act of intimidation towards a person participating in the execution of 'a public service mission to obtain an exemption from the rules governing this service'.

The student's complaint was dismissed for "insufficiently characterized offense", the Paris prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.

A month after the events, the principal left his position "for security reasons", according to a message sent Tuesday to teachers, students and parents by the new head of the establishment. The rectorate, for its part, spoke of "personal convenience" and an "early departure" for retirement, "a few months" before it, "in view of the events which have marked these last weeks".

This early departure sparked a wave of indignation in the political class. From the left to the far right, officials deplored a “failure” in the face of the “Islamist movement”.

“This is what 'no waves' leads to, this is where small cowardices and big renunciations lead us,” reacted the president of the Les Républicains senators Bruno Retailleau.

“Mobilized teams”

“We cannot accept it,” declared the leader of the socialist deputies Boris Vallaud, denouncing a “collective failure”.

“It’s above all a defeat for the State,” said the head of the Reconquest list on Sud Radio! in the European elections, Marion Maréchal.

The socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is "appalled and dismayed" but "understands" the decision "to protect herself", according to her office. Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, judged that the "attackers (of the principal, Editor's note) must be put out of harm's way".

The principal "did not resign", for her part affirmed Nicole Belloubet before the Cultural Affairs Committee of the Assembly. “He is in retirement (...). He is currently on special leave of absence until July, until the date of his retirement,” she added.

The new principal of the school complex, who took office on Monday, explained that he had been "missioned by the academic management" to ensure the "interim until next July", in his message to the educational community.

During her visit to the establishment at the beginning of March, Nicole Belloubet stressed that a “series of measures” had been taken to protect the principal, “from functional protection to work on social networks, in connection with the Pharos platform "from reporting illegal content online, including "securing the establishment".

His ministry assured Wednesday that it “never abandons its agents” in the face of threats and that its teams “remain mobilized”.

With AFP

The France 24 summary of the week

invites you to look back at the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 application