Witnesses question the version of a principal education adviser (CPE) of the Charlemagne high school in Paris who filed a complaint for death threats and online harassment, according to information collected by franceinfo. Thursday, June 16, a student who came to take a French bac test in this Parisian high school was denied access to the establishment because she was wearing the veil. She refused to remove it, according to the version of the rectorate of Paris.
This version is now disputed by several witnesses, high school staff members contacted by franceinfo. According to them, the baccalaureate candidate suffered an Islamophobic act and the high school hierarchy seeks to camouflage “an unacceptable situation”. According to these witnesses of the incident, at the entrance to the school last Thursday, the young woman immediately removed her veil when the CPE asked her.
However, according to these witnesses, the CPE did not let the baccalaureate enter and continued to attack her. These witnesses state that the CPE said the following: “You take off your thing! And there may be witnesses, I don’t care”. The tense exchange lasted long enough for a neighboring tradeswoman to intervene, worried to see a student being yelled at in this way.
Some staff members who signed a press release support this candidate for the baccalaureate. “We are deeply shocked by the attitude of this manager towards a young high school student who only wanted to pass her baccalaureate in good conditions”can we read in this press release. “In addition, the reactionary surge and the threats she has received by the hundreds from the far right add to the trauma”add these staff.
Contacted by franceinfo to respond to this version, the Paris rectorate and the Charlemagne high school did not respond. In another press release, a Charlemagne high school committee also supports the student, denouncing a “injustice”, a “humiliation”. The “threats she has received are intolerable”, can we read.
However, these students from the Charlemagne high school committee also support the CPE, because “threats made” against him “are unacceptable and totally removed from our values”. Since this altercation a lively controversy has arisen on social networks. The name of the education counselor was published on Twitter, she even received death threats.
The investigation opened Friday, June 17 by the national center for the fight against online hatred was also opened for “moral harassment online and endangering the lives of others by disseminating information relating to private life, family or professional. The investigations were entrusted to the OCLCH (Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes).