At the beginning of October, groups of students enter and leave the Gambetta-Carnot school campus in Arras. They cross the small square of Frachon or stay on the benches surrounding the tree-lined lawns. The decoration is still impregnated with the attack perpetrated against this establishment of more than 2,000 students and 192 employees, on October 13, 2023, during which Professor Dominique Bernard was murdered. The plot is surrounded by concrete blocks installed after the tragedy. And just a few steps from the entrance doors, imposing flower pots have been placed on the spot where the literature teacher was murdered by a former student of the establishment, Mohammed Mogouchkov.
François Duceppe-Lamarre, a history and geography teacher at Gambetta, once wondered if he could still walk through the front door, which had become a crime scene, every day. For several months he preferred the side doors. “Today I can go through it, like any door”He confesses, before adding, excited: “Sometimes I pass by and say hello to Dominique, I think about him. »
A year after the events, the trauma caused by the attack is still alive in the educational community of Gambetta-Carnot, which paid tribute to Dominique Bernard, on Friday, October 11, before a public ceremony organized on Sunday by the town hall, with Isabelle Bernard, widow. of the teacher.
Three employees of the establishment were injured during the attack. In a state of shock, some teachers had to be arrested for several months. In addition to the violence of the crime and the long grieving process, everyone was marked by these hours confined to classrooms, this October 13, 2023, suspended by the images spread on social networks. “The commemorations take us back to the events, it is very difficult for some of us, and both students and teachers are falling apart, we see that the cycle that began a year ago has not ended”reports Duceppe-Lamarre, who has been working for a year in “gain enthusiasm little by little” AND “Continue working to live together.”
Psychological support
The rectorate of Lille has reactivated the listening cells for the commemoration period. The prefecture, the France Victims association and the academy have launched several psychological support systems for students and staff on school campuses. In the spring, the rectorate installed an individual and collective monitoring system. “It is important for us to respond to the need for continuity of long-term monitoring expressed by staff”assures Paul-Eric Pierre, general secretary of the rectorate. Gambetta is also in contact with the staff of the school where Samuel Paty, a teacher murdered by an Islamist terrorist on October 16, 2020 near his establishment in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), worked.
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