The beheading of Samuel Paty on October 16, 2020 had the effect of a national earthquake.
By the violence of the act perpetrated against this 47-year-old history-geography teacher, as by the nature of the republican symbols attacked: the school, the teachers, secularism.
Two and a half years later, last May, the sister of the killed professor, Mickaëlle Paty, decided to write directly to the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, to request the opening of a commission of inquiry.
With the objective of revealing the “dysfunctions” which led to the death of his brother.
“Like anyone else, I was not prepared to suffer the violence of a terrorist attack, nor, moreover, to hear the scream of my mother announcing to me that my brother had been beheaded,” she described, asking for information. answers to his questions, “in order to establish the flaws in this drama and to try to plug the gaps”.
A wish is implicitly formulated: never again.
The Palais du Luxembourg voted to create this same commission the following month, with the objective of examining “the question of reporting and dealing with pressure, threats and attacks of which teachers are victims”.
It officially starts in June 2023.
After several months of investigation - notably impacted by the terrorist assassination of another teacher, Dominique Bernard in Arras on October 13 - 45 hearings and several trips to educational establishments, senators François-Noël Buffet and Laurent Lafon, co-rapporteurs , presented their conclusions and recommendations this Wednesday, March 6.
Reaffirm the authority of the school
“Act to avoid new tragedies”, defend the authors of the report in unison, who issue 38 recommendations “to protect the school as well as all the staff who work there and restore the authority of the educational institution”.
Firstly, it is a question of “defending and promoting secularism within education”;
In particular, it is a question of extending the ban on the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols “to any activity organized by the educational institution”, including outside school hours.
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The report also recommends improving the training of educational staff in the face of possible challenges to their teaching.
And this, while the educational community has often expressed its loneliness in the face of these difficult situations.
“Reaffirm the authority” of the school by strengthening the link with parents, but also by extending the existing criminal sanction for non-compliance with the attendance obligation, to “repeated non-compliance with operating rules " The establishments.
One of the key measures of these recommendations.
Better support teachers and school leaders
The senators also wish to improve the security of establishments as well as the link with police and judicial institutions.
And insist on the necessary better support for heads of establishments or teachers, so that incidents are systematically reported and better dealt with.
A recommendation which finds a direct echo in the news, after the opening by the Paris prosecutor's office last week of an investigation for cyberharassment against the principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school in Paris.
The latter had received death threats after reminding students of the obligation to remove their veils within the establishment.
Read alsoDeath threats, violence… In Paris, the great uneasiness of school leaders “within reach of a slap”
The Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet also went there to assure him of state support.
“As soon as we became aware of the facts, we really reacted to form a protective shield around the establishment and its staff,” she argued.
Seven out of ten French people express their attachment to secularism
The conclusions of this report are supported by a survey commissioned in parallel by the Senate on the relationship of the French to the concept of secularism.
If Gérard Larcher says he is "favourably surprised by the French's attachment to secularism" (70% of respondents say they are attached to it), it is not always well understood by everyone, particularly by young people aged 18 to 24, and a large part of the French believe that it is not respected enough overall.
Interviewed by Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui in France, the head of the Senate calls on Gabriel Attal like Emmanuel Macron to take up the proposals made by the Senate on schools.
“It is a national priority, because school is a priority of the nation,” he says, affirming that he wants to “protect living together.”
Beyond partisan divisions.
And ensure that the school never has to mourn any Samuel Paty or Dominique Bernard again.