A year after the suicide of Christine Renon, director of the Méhul school in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), more than one hundred and fifty people gathered during a march this Saturday to pay tribute to him.
On the steps of this school listed in the inventory of historical monuments, Sophie, a former parent of a pupil, reread the first sentence of Christine Renon's farewell letter: “Today, Saturday, I wake up and I am terribly tired.
"
We are at the end of September 2019, the school year has just started.
These words resonate ominously.
A few hours after sealing her letter, school principal Méhul, aged 58, threw herself 5 meters into the school hall.
She described in her letter the arduousness of her work: "the very little things which occupy 200% of the daily life".
READ ALSO>
Pantin: one year after the suicide of Christine Renon, school principal, anger intact
The testimonies, which follow one another this Saturday, from parents or teachers, tend to show that since then nothing has really changed in the schools of Seine-Saint-Denis: the lack of means, the exhaustion of teachers and violence between students.
The signs always say: “Let's go to school”.
"This walk is a starting point"
“This march forces Education to look itself in the face,” says Sophie.
If the school holds up, it's because the teachers are getting hit.
And we are still dying for lack of resources, lack of support.
"
For Mathilde, another mother of a student, “this walk is a starting point: we demand actions, not compassion”.
She believes that Christine's suicide was "a militant gesture".
Teachers from neighboring establishments also came to express “this grief which has turned into anger”.
The teachers of the lycée d'Alembert, in Aubervilliers, deplored, at the end of 2019, the murder of two high school students Kewi, 15 years old, and Djadjé, 19 years old.
They remain shocked by the attitude of their supervisory administration.
READ ALSO>
The alleged murderers of Kewi, stabbed in Les Lilas, released
“The rector did not come back to see us, as he had promised.
We have no news of the audit on school life, which was held on January 10 and the health and safety committee made a mockery, ”explains Mathilde, a former high school teacher.
Seine-Saint-Denis newsletter
Every morning, the news of your department seen by Le Parisien
I'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.
Learn more
Gabriel, a teacher at Paul-Robert high school in Les Lilas, where Kewi's attackers were educated, is just as overwhelmed by the reaction of the rectorate.
"We were told
we are not going to solve the problems of the suburbs in two days
".
Kewi, 15, "killed for nothing": his sister tells
