There were tears in the voice of the professor of history and geography, who, concluding her so particular course, this Monday, said to her Terminale of the Hector Berlioz high school in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne): "Have confidence in your teachers, and tell your parents to trust us ”.
The message went straight to the hearts and minds of Nayah and Antoninus, moved by their reunion with their teachers, two weeks after the assassination of Samuel Paty, beheaded on leaving his college on the evening of the holidays, the October 16.
"The teachers are really discredited, it's true that their job is difficult ... We see them as machines to pass the baccalaureate, we do not realize our luck to have free and open education", commented these good 17 year old students.
So they made a point of honor to respect the minute of silence, organized at 11 am in the courtyard of their school, hoping to appease the sadness of the adults in front of them.
"Attacks + corona: the general atmosphere is heavy"
In other establishments, and even in other classes of the same school complex, very different bells rang out this Monday at the end of classes, about this very special start to the school year, shaken both by the shock of the assassination of the professor of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, by the screed of the reconfinement, and a security context still heavier since the attack in Nice, Thursday.
"Attacks + corona: the general atmosphere is heavy", summarize Méloé and Léna, 14 years old.
In several establishments, the pot of tension exploded on Monday: teachers walked out, at the Courtille college in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), at the Jean-Jaurès high school in Montreuil, at the Newton high school in Clichy ( Hauts-de-Seine)… With everywhere, two distinct demands: time to prepare a more substantial tribute to their murdered colleague, and the transition to classes in half-groups due to the health crisis.
"This is what the ministry envisaged in the event of active propagation of the virus, but we are there", pleads Véronique Pabian, teacher at the Jaurès de Montreuil high school, unionized at Snes-FSU, who considers it useful to also anticipate ... "the closure of establishments ”.
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Students and their teacher during the minute of silence at the Lycée Honoré d'Estienne Orves in Carquefou Loire-Atlantique).
/ AFP / Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS
In front of all the establishments, police barriers and screen-printed cars have made a comeback.
And on the faces of the children, from the first grade, we no longer see the mines, only the masks.
"This new school year is the hardest of all," confirms Nabila, mother of 3 children met in front of the Parmentier school, in Paris (10th district).
His eldest, Mehdi, 10 years old and full of willpower, thinks that it will take him "a week" to manage to breathe under the piece of cloth.
From the homage paid in class to Samuel Paty, he retained that "it is not because you show a caricature that you have to get upset".
"I found it to be insulting"
In Louise's class, in 3rd at Vincennes, the minute's silence took place in the classroom, and everyone remained seated.
Hélène, in 5th grade at Vincennes, admits that she "did not really understand" the "letter from Jean", as she calls it - it is in fact the letter to the teachers of Jean Jaurès, which Education national asked all teachers to read (in a shortened version) as a tribute, from the first grade.
A banner at the Lycée François-Magendie in Bordeaux.
/ AFP / Philippe LOPEZ
Amir and Adam, at the Françoise-Seligman college, in Paris (10th arrondissement), simply did not understand the point.
“I thought it was insulting to say that without the teachers we would be nothing… the two boys cry out.
We have our parents, anyway!
And the teacher thought like us!
»They assure.
In the class of Lisa, Cheikné, and Solal, small talkers in 6th grade, the tribute lasted “about fifteen minutes”, and without a text from Jaurès.
“The teacher thought it didn't make sense to read a letter to students for teachers,” the children recount.
Instead, the class listened to excerpts from the poem “Freedom” by Paul Éluard.
