A 15-year-old teenager was found dead on Tuesday April 9 in his private high school in Reims under circumstances that are still unclear. This young boy “died in the toilets of the boarding school” of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-La-Salle high school, according to a press release from the Reims public prosecutor, François Schneider. “No suspicious traces” were found on his body and “the cause of death is unknown,” he stressed.
An investigation into the causes of death has been opened and an autopsy is planned for Thursday, he said. The prosecutor is scheduled to hold a news conference that same day at 5 p.m.
The student, who was missing at meal time, had a “discomfort in the toilet”, the director of the school group of which the high school is a part, Didier Tilly, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). , adding that no pills had been discovered in his room.
“Light must be shed on this tragedy: this is what I asked of the network of which this establishment is part”, the La Salle foundation, reacted on X the Minister of National Education, Nicole Belloubet.
“A huge weight.”
The management of the La Salle foundation, which manages Catholic establishments throughout France, said it was “appalled” by this death. She refused to comment on possible harassment, mentioned by three high school students to AFP journalists. The Reims prosecutor stressed, for his part, that the context of the teenager’s death was “absolutely not clearly defined”.
According to an 18-year-old final year student, the young boy had been “discriminated against on the basis of his sexual orientation”, something he complained about to supervisors on several occasions, as well as to school life. “Being teased, insulted because of that, it was a huge burden,” said another student. He reports that the teenager had been changed rooms because “things were going badly at the boarding school”, with no improvement in the situation. A third, his roommate, assures that he suffered “mockery, insults behind his back” and that the staff were “aware”.
He was “a young person who was researching” himself, “who was questioning himself, like many young people of his age,” explained Mr. Tilly.
A volunteer since the start of the September 2023 school year at Radio Jeunes Reims, an associative radio station based in the high school but independent of the establishment, he “came to our place to take a little freedom”, according to James Jouffroy, manager of the station. “Passionate about audiovisual”, he found in the radio “a way to free himself from his shyness”, adds the association manager, who always saw him smiling in the corridors of the school, “always with friends, both boys and girls “.
A bouquet of white roses was left in front of the entrance to the establishment, which remained open on Wednesday. A psychological unit has been set up in agreement with the diocese.
Franck Leroy, president of the Grand-Est region, expressed on X his “emotion” in the face of a “upsetting drama”. The chief of staff of the rector of the Reims academy “went to the establishment to provide support,” declared the rectorate, without substantiating the suspicions of harassment.
School bullying was at the heart of the news in 2023, after a series of dramatic cases, including the suicide of Lindsay, 13, in May in Pas-de-Calais, and that of Nicolas, 15, in September in Yvelines.
The government reacted at the end of September 2023 by announcing the establishment of “empathy courses” from September, the confiscation of the phones of perpetrators of serious cyberharassment, and the “systematic” referral to the public prosecutor in the event of a report.