The Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye on Friday described as “intolerable” the prayers, Muslim according to the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi, pronounced by about fifteen schoolchildren in Nice during the lunch break and announced the opening of an administrative investigation.
“The facts that happened in three primary schools in Nice are intolerable. I am immediately mobilizing the values ??teams of the Republic. In connection with @cestrosi, the government is taking all the necessary measures to ensure respect for secularism in our schools”, a wrote the minister on Twitter.
“Some students organized religious times and prayers during the lunch break”, explained the minister in a rare joint press release with the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi (Horizons), also referring to other facts in a college and a high school. of the academy.
“An investigation by the General Inspectorate is being carried out to precisely establish the facts and draw useful conclusions”, they added, indicating in passing that the parents have been summoned and sequences on secularism have already been organized. for students in these schools.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and previously published on Twitter, Christian Estrosi writes that he was informed by the academy inspector of “extremely serious facts, which took place in various establishments in (his) city”. He evokes “children in CM1 and CM2 who said the Muslim prayer in the courtyard of their establishment or organized a minute of silence in memory of the Prophet Muhammad in their school”.
“In two of these schools, it is prayers at the midday hour. These prayers involved ten children of CM1, on May 16, for one of these schools, and three children of CM1, on June 5, for the other. For the third school, it is a pupil of CM2 who took the initiative on June 8 to organize a minute of silence in memory of the Prophet and who called on his comrades to participate. was reported to the prefecture for suspicion of radicalization”, explained to AFP for his part Natacha Chicot, rector of the Nice academy.
The rectorate indicated that it had informed the town hall of these facts on June 14.
The “parents have been summoned and, to my knowledge, have understood that we do not have the right to pray in a school”, declared Pap Ndiaye on Friday evening on the air of BFM-TV. He assured that with “firmness, discernment and pedagogy, this is how we will move forward and progress to significantly reduce (…) the facts of attacks on secularism”.
Lunch breaks in schools are generally the responsibility of municipalities because municipal employees are responsible for this extracurricular time.
“Such facts (…) must be the subject of a firm, collective and resolute response”, insisted Pap Ndiaye and Christian Estrosi.
They added that both teachers and municipal staff will benefit from common training in addition to those they receive on secularism and the values ??of the Republic.
“At the national level, additional measures will be concerted with the associations of local elected officials from the next instance of dialogue with the local authorities which will be held on July 3,” promised the minister.
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06/16/2023 20:49:40 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
