The day after his meeting with Lindsay's family, who denounced the loneliness in which the 13-year-old girl found herself being bullied and which led to her suicide, the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, promised on Tuesday "additional means" in the fight against school bullying. "We need to ramp up on this issue, we need to accelerate what we have already started to do. There is still a long way to go," he said on France Info, again regretting a "collective failure".
🔴 Lindsay's suicide after being harassed ➡️ "I told the parents my condolences, my emotion. And I told them what the National Education will do to fight against harassment. We must step up," says Pap Ndiaye, who speaks of a "collective failure" pic.twitter.com/Y8em7suxGD
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) June 6, 2023
Pap Ndiaye acknowledged that the pHARe device "does not work as it should in all institutions". This system, tested for two years in six academies and generalized to all colleges at the beginning of last school year, provides for the formation of a reference team of at least five people per college and per primary school district, the appointment and training of at least ten student ambassadors per college and ten hours of training per year for children. It must be extended to high schools from the beginning of the next school year. 22,900 middle school ambassadors are already trainedto identify harassment situations, according to the ministry's website. The mother of Lucas, who committed suicide in January in the Vosges, had judged that the device lacked competent people.
The minister also says he wants to set up "a harassment referent in each institution, who will be attached to the head of the institution". "There will be financial means for this," he said. Today, 380 harassment referents are already spread throughout the country.
VIDEO. "Not enough": Lindsay's family disappointed by their meeting with Pap Ndiaye
The Ministry of National Education told AFP that a person responsible for monitoring situations and coordinating the fight against harassment will be appointed in each college from the beginning of the next school year, with additional remuneration for this mission. This could be a nurse, a principal board of education (CPE) or a teacher.
Pap Ndiaye also said that the ministry would "put additional resources on 3020 and 3018", the two emergency numbers for families and victims (3020) and cyberbullying (3018), without further details. Families had already complained that the numbers were not reachable at all hours. 3020 is currently reachable from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 20 p.m., until 18 p.m. on Saturdays. Last week, Pap Ndiaye said that the means of these two numbers would be "increased to recruit more psychologists, social media experts and listeners".