A "shocking" request. After the revelations of La Dépêche du Midi on the request of police to the heads of schools of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) to tell them the number of students absent on the day of Eid al-Fitr, SOS Racisme expressed its indignation. In a statement published on Sunday, the association denounced "a dubious amalgam and obviously based on anti-Muslim prejudices" and asked for explanations from the Ministry of the Interior.
As a reminder, school heads and school directors of secondary education received an email dated April 26 from the departmental directorate of public security (DDSP) of Haute-Garonne soliciting them, "at the request of the intelligence services", in order to "know the percentage of absenteeism on Friday, April 21, 2023, during the Eid festival", which marks the end of Ramadan.
This request was also made without the approval of the rectorate of Toulouse. The rector reportedly instructed "not to respond" when informed.
The "alarming" silence of the Ministry of the Interior
SOS Racisme is indignant at a request that "associates Muslim religious practice with a question of security or domestic intelligence". According to the association, several "essential principles" have thus been broken: that of secularism "which imposes neutrality on the State", that of equality since "fortunately, no request of this type has ever been made for other religious groups", and that of legality because the absence of students during religious holidays including Eid-el-Fitr "is explicitly provided for by law, pursuant to a circular dated 2004".
🔴When the Haute-Garonne police associated the Eid festival with a publique@GDarmanin security problem, the DDSP31 violated the #Laicite, #égalité, #légalité ppes. Why such a request?
Our press release following the revelations of @ladepechedumidi 👇 pic.twitter.com/p8CDj4myD7
— SOS Racisme - #NonAuRacisme (@SOS_Racisme) May 21, 2023
SOS Racisme welcomes the reaction of the staff of the National Education "who did not comply with this request of the police services". Nevertheless, it "is alarmed by the behavior of the Ministry of the Interior, which remained silent in the face of a manifest dysfunction of one of its services".
This is why it asks the Ministry of the Interior "to establish the reasons that may have led officials of the DDSP of Haute-Garonne to formulate such a request". For Dominique Sopo, president of SOS Racisme, "if there is a "Muslim problem" in the minds of some civil servants, it is the responsibility of the ministers on whom they depend to take care of it and to make every effort to ensure that this inclination is combated".
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis challenges Gérald Darmanin
These revelations provoked the anger of the educational community, but they also provoked reactions from the political class. This Sunday, on Radio J, the former first secretary of the Socialist Party, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, asked that the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin "shed light" on this case. "It's nonsense, frankly. We are in an unlikely situation."
"I ask that @GDarmanin shed light on this case, that he tell us if this is a directive or if this carding is an initiative of the police. It's part of the republican deconstruction": @jccambadelis #FichageLycéensToulouseAid #ForumRadioJ @RadioJFrance pic.twitter.com/y1QFIi1zRl
— Haziza Frédéric (@frhaz) May 21, 2023
According to a source close to the case, "it is a clumsiness". "The territorial intelligence services went through police officers referents of the National Education, their message was poorly formulated, but asking for an absenteeism rate, it is not carding or nominative data," said this source.
This work of territorial intelligence is part of a context of "renewed attacks on secularism in schools" during the period of Ramadan, according to the same source, with, for example, "challenges for social networks to film oneself with a veil" or refusals to participate in singing and music lessons.