“Over time, I saw a form of loneliness in school, the loneliness of teachers when their legitimacy or authority was questioned.”declared the new Minister of National Education, Anne Genetet, on September 23, during the transfer of power. Some very violent cases occasionally make headlines. The latest example: on October 7, in Tourcoing (North), an 18-year-old student at the Sévigné high school was accused of having slapped a teacher, who allegedly slapped her back. The incident allegedly occurred after the teacher asked the young woman to remove the veil.
An event that occurs while the teaching community is deeply marked by the murder of Samuel Paty, a History teacher, beheaded on October 16, 2020 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), for having shown caricatures of Muhammad to his students; the death, in February 2023, of Agnès Lassalle, a Spanish teacher in Saint Jean de Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), murdered in the middle of class by a student, who admitted “animosity” towards his teacher; the murder of Dominique Bernard, a French teacher in Arras, stabbed on October 13, 2023 by a radicalized former student.
While the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, insists that it is necessary “restore order, restore order, restore order”What answers will the new Minister of Education give? “The ship will not change course”he assures. Listen: the course set by Gabriel Attal, close to Genetet, who mentioned his name to Matignon to maintain control of his former ministry. “It breaks, it is repaired. You dirty, you clean. “You challenge authority, we teach you to respect it.”he thundered during his general policy statement in January, following his appointment as prime minister. A phrase he repeated on April 18 in Viry-Châtillon (Essonne), on the occasion of his first hundred days in Matignon, before asking in the same speech for a “surge of authority”especially at school. And to cite a series of repressive tools: sanctions of all kinds, mention in Parcoursup of disruptive students, etc.
The same story was heard from Jean-Michel Blanquer. “Authority must be restored in the school system”I trusted him ParisianNovember 2017, for his first return to school disguised as the Minister of National Education. On the right, there is a small incessant music: “It is not nationalism to teach our children to respect the tricolor flag, the national anthem, which they must face”declared Nicolas Sarkozy, then president, on February 15, 2008. Even the left had its authoritarian accent: this was stated by François Hollande on January 21, 2015, shortly after the attacks against charlie hebdo and the Hyper Hide of the Porte de Vincennes, which “any conduct that calls into question the values of the Republic or the authority of the teacher or professor will be[it] subject of a report to the director of the establishment ».
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