Prevention, detection and management on a case-by-case basis…. After several cases of suicides among adolescents, the Prime Minister will present a system “in order to better prevent tragedies and report on existing failures”.
Gabriel Attal warned: “The electroshock has started”. Like the Minister of Education, the government intends to flex its muscles against school bullying, after several cases of suicides in recent months. Thus, the executive must announce on Wednesday September 27 its interministerial plan, presented as an “absolute priority” for the start of the school year for Élisabeth Borne.
>> School harassment: the government will launch a communication campaign on putting children’s speech into perspective
This plan was announced in June by the Prime Minister after the suicide of Lindsay, 13, in Pas-de-Calais. She then asked the Ministers of the Interior, Justice, Health and the Secretary of State for Digital to work with the Minister of National Education.
Avoiding Past Mistakes
Concretely, this plan “against harassment at school and in all places where the child lives“is structured around 3 axes: prevention, detection and management of cases of harassment. Matignon specifies: it is about “better prevent tragedies such as those that have occurred in recent months and report on existing failures“. In short: avoid the mistakes of the past, as we saw with the letters with an inappropriate tone sent to families by the rectorate of Versailles for example.
To free up speech, and detect what we call “weak signals”, the government is considering distributing a questionnaire to students, in the form of a self-assessment, with this central question: how does the child feel in his school? It remains to be seen who will then process these documents. In the balance, there is also the question of human resources: to be able to collect the words of young people, we need more supervisors, CPEs, as well as more school nurses, in particular.
The Minister of Education Gabriel Attal also wishes to increase the number of “empathy courses”, practices inspired by Denmark, a country at the forefront in the fight against harassment, during which the aim is to raise students’ awareness of listening to the other. And then, finally, a communication campaign is planned, aimed at adults (teachers, but also parents, police officers, magistrates) this time, on the question of relativizing children’s speech. We must take what students say more seriously, the government hopes. In the dramatic cases of Nicolas and Lindsay, these teenagers who ended up committing suicide, National Education realized that they had raised awareness about what they suffered on a daily basis. But the reaction of adults and the institution was not up to par…
“Digital curfew”
Finally, a repressive component, with the central question of the responsibility of social networks, will be put in place. With a keyword: firmness. Several rapid measures can be taken in the event of cyberbullying, in particular, such as the confiscation of the young harasser’s mobile phone, from the start of the legal procedure.
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Gabriel Attal, the Minister of Education, also raised the possibility of banning access to social networks of young people in question, for several months, or at night, only, as a sort of “digital curfew” .
Finally, there is also talk of creating “anti-harassment brigades” in the rectorates. This would take the form of small groups of specially trained civil servants who could intervene in the event of a problem to help school leaders.