The bell rings, shrill.
A stream of students escapes from the purple classrooms of the Charles Péguy college, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.
It's 12:30 p.m. and the smell of fries escapes from the ground floor, attracting middle school students... Except for a dozen teenagers, who run through the corridors: "
We're going to be late for
Lighthouse", loose one of them trotting, her yellow backpack beating her steps.
"Phare" is the name of a new government system, designed to fight against school bullying.
Tested for two years in six French academies, it was generalized to all schools and colleges in France in September 2022. Its key measure: involving students and the entire educational community to fight head on body against harassment.
A brand new device, which painfully echoes the news of the suicide of young Lucas, who ended his life after being the victim of mockery and homophobic insults.
Ten student ambassadors per school
A scenario that Medhi Carlevato wants to avoid at all costs.
A prevention advisor for “Phare”, he has been going from school to school for five years now to make students aware of the prevention of bullying situations.
"
We want to open the children's eyes to the fact that there are solutions, that they are not alone in the face of this violence
", he explains while waiting for the students who are settling in.
These ten college students, recruited on a voluntary basis, are responsible for preventing situations of harassment, and for training their classmates in their schools.
This is the third time they have met with Mehdi in this classroom, the walls of which bear handmade posters against student violence.
Melda, a ninth-grade student, writes the key words of the session in her pretty round calligraphy.
The expressions “
repeated violence
”, “
cyberbullying
” and “
isolation
” gradually appear on the whiteboard.
A definition that leads Mehdi to re-explain to students the role that children play with the school as ambassadors.
"
We identify the situations and we show our empathy to the harassed student to tell him that he is not alone
", explains Jeanne, a little brunette in fourth grade, immediately completed by her comrade Gabriel.
"
We alert adults, and we must also make others aware of our role
”.
Read alsoPlayground, toilets, lunch break… these blind spots where school bullying is rampant
Faced with the maddening figures of bullying, the National Education wants to take this problem very seriously.
According to the information mission on school bullying and cyberbullying, it would be 6 to 10% of students who suffer some form of bullying, i.e. 800,000 to 1 million child victims each year.
65% of teachers consider themselves ill-equipped to react to this type of situation.
Although the current panoply of instruments for combating bullying is quite extensive, many tools are in fact not well known to pupils and their parents.
A lack of knowledge of the solutions that the “Phare” system aims to fill, by making families and students more aware of the responses provided to stem such a scourge.
It's that "Lighthouse" is explicitly designed to cut the weed of harassment at the root.
“
We learn to detect the beginnings of such a situation: does the child eat alone in the canteen, does he often arrive late?
“, questions Nora Fraisse, founder and leader of the association Marion, La main tendue, reached by telephone.
“
We do the weather forecast for the school climate.
»
Spotting weak signals
Weak signals that must be spotted by student ambassadors, who know a lot about the issue: most have attended, or have been victims of harassment during their schooling.
Including Fatimah, a discreet fourth-grade student.
“
I arrived here and the people weren't very friendly
,” she breathes shyly.
"
I like this group, and then it reminds me a bit of what I experienced...
" Gabriel shares this point of view:
"I like the exercise because it's concrete."
Read alsoFrom school harassment to Olympic gold, the hidden face of Alain Bernard
The session also takes a practical turn: the ten ambassadors of the Charles Péguy college are responsible for putting on a participatory theater play on this subject, which they will present to sixth-grade students after the winter holidays.
The budding actors get into place, in front of Medhi who acts as audience and director.
The curtain rises on a scene of harassment mimed by several students.
The tone is shy and the gestures still a little awkward, but the heart is there.
“
Get closer to her, you have to crush her, intimidate her!
», Throws Medhi to Anaïs, who plays the bullying student.
"
Away like this, you're not harassing anyone
“, he adds, smiling to put her at ease.
The challenge ?
Offer young spectators a concrete scenario of a case of harassment: the sixth graders will be invited to participate and ask questions to correct the attitudes played by the ambassadors.
The play is divided into several scenes, including one that sees a student refer to a teacher to talk about a bullying situation he has witnessed.
The adult listens and punishes the bullies.
A theoretical situation, "
but which does not often happen in real life
", deplores Anaïs, while her comrades point to a lack of listening on the part of the educational staff.
"
When I was in elementary school, there was a boy in my class who was bullied all the time
," says Gabriel.
The teachers had been warned, but nothing had changed.
He ended up changing schools and I never heard from him again.
»
Lack of arms
A missed responsibility of the school, also pointed out in the case of the suicide of little Lucas at the beginning of January.
The Louis-Armand college in Golbey in the Vosges, registered in the Phare device, was however informed of his case.
"
This drama could have been avoided
", pointed out Lucas' mother at a press conference on January 30, who deplored a device "
really not developed
".
“
He's my son, and there are thousands of others... There aren't enough trained people.
You have to look into it.
Contacted, the establishment did not wish to respond to requests from
Figaro.
"
It is not because the device is generalized that it is executed
", recalls Nora Fraisse.
“
It will take two to three years to get it up to full capacity.
And all the more so since the “Phare” program is based on voluntary work.
If many students report to become ambassadors, the 68,000 educational assistants only follow the training if they volunteer, training provided by a “Lighthouse” device still in lack of arms.
