The Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, “wishes” that a disciplinary procedure against the former rector of Versailles could be examined after the suicide in Poissy of Nicolas, a teenage victim of harassment, announced the ministry at Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The inspection mission investigated “the conditions in which a letter with deeply shocking terms could have been sent to this family. What emerges from the work of the mission is that this letter, in these terms, should never have been addressed to this family, in this situation,” said the ministry in a statement sent to AFP.
In an interview published on Saturday September 23 by Le Parisien, Charline Avenel, the former rector of Versailles, presented “apologies to the parents of Nicolas”, 15 years old, in her name and in the name of the institution she directed at the time of the facts. She claimed that she had “not been aware” of the controversial letter sent by the rectorate to the teenager’s parents who denounced acts of harassment against him.
This threatening letter was sent in May 2023 by the Versailles rectorate to the parents of Nicolas, a teenager who committed suicide in September in Poissy (Yvelines) after being the victim of school harassment.
“This standard letter has its origins in the procedure put in place by the Versailles academy after the assassination of Samuel Paty to strengthen support for agents subject to threats, which made it possible to significantly reduce the processing time requests for functional protection, reduced from four to one month”, recalls Rue de Grenelle.
A “fragility of procedure” called into question
“The sending of this letter is fully justified since serious and unfounded threats or challenges are issued against a national education official” but “nothing justifies that it was sent to certain families, including Nicolas’s parents”, she underlines.
According to the ministry, “these unjustified mailings are linked to the fragility of this procedure, implemented orally”, and are marked by the “absence of distinction between the different types of threats”. Gabriel Attal described this letter as a “shame” and announced the launch of an audit on the management of cases of harassment during the last school year in each academy.
According to the ministry’s statement on Tuesday, this national audit “does not reveal any comparable situation in other academies.” The audit “will ensure that the right response patterns are applied when handling situations of school bullying,” he continues.