Paris school head resigns after death threats
over Muslim veil row
Anger from politicians across the spectrum as
principal resigns ‘for security reasons’ after asking students to remove
headscarves
Agence
France-Presse in Paris
Wed 27 Mar
2024 18.05 CET
French
politicians from across the spectrum have expressed dismay over the resignation
of a Paris school principal who had received death threats after asking a
student to remove her Muslim veil on the premises.
In a show
of support, prime minister Gabriel Attal, a former education minister, was set
to receive the principal late on Wednesday, his office said.
Secularism
and religion are hot-button issues in France, which is home to Europe’s largest
Muslim community.
In 2004,
authorities banned schoolchildren from wearing “signs or outfits by which
students ostensibly show a religious affiliation” such as headscarves, turbans
or kippas on the basis of the country’s secular laws, which are meant to
guarantee neutrality in state institutions.
The
headteacher’s departure comes amid deep tensions in the country after a series
of incidents including the killing of a teacher by an Islamist former pupil
last year.
The head at
the Maurice Ravel lycée in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats
online following an altercation with a student last month, officials told AFP.
In late
February he had asked three students to remove their Islamic headscarves on
school premises, but one of them refused and an altercation ensued, according
to prosecutors. The head later received death threats online.
According
to a letter sent by the school to teachers, pupils and parents, the principal
stood down for “security reasons”, while education officials said he had taken
“early retirement”.
In a
message addressed to the school’s staff, quoted by French communist daily
L’Humanité, the principal said he had taken the decision to leave “for his own
safety and that of the school”.
“It’s a
disgrace,” Bruno Retailleau, the head of the right-wing Republicans faction in
the Senate upper house, said on X on Wednesday.
“We can’t
accept it,” Boris Vallaud, the head of the Socialist deputies in the National
Assembly lower house, told television broadcaster France 2, calling the
incident “a collective failure”.
Marion
Maréchal, granddaughter of far-right patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen and a
far-right politician herself, spoke on Sud Radio of a “defeat of the state” in
the face of “the Islamist gangrene”.
Maud
Bregeon, a lawmaker with President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, also
took aim at “an Islamist movement”.
“Authority
lies with school heads and teachers, and we have a duty to support this
educational community,” Bregeon said.
Socialist
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo called the principal to “assure him of her total
support and solidarity”, said her office, adding she was “appalled and
dismayed.”
The student
lodged a complaint against the principal, accusing him of mistreating her
during the incident. She told French daily Le Parisien that she had been “hit
hard on the arm” by the principal.
The student
is an adult who was at the school for vocational training.
The Paris
public prosecutor’s office told AFP on Wednesday that her complaint had been
dismissed.
At the same
time, an investigation was opened into cyber-harassment after the death threats
against the head.
In a
further show of support, the education ministry said in a statement that it
would never abandon teachers in the face of threats.
The
ministry said that “all teams” remained mobilised, adding that the principal’s
decision to leave his post was “understandable given the seriousness of the
attacks against him”.
Education
minister Nicole Belloubet visited the school in early March and deplored the
“unacceptable attacks”.
A
26-year-old man has been arrested for making death threats against the
principal on the internet. He is due to stand trial in
April.
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