“The time is for meditation and not for the sometimes abject instrumentalization that we have heard”, reacts the Snes-FSU

“The time is for meditation, for sharing the pain of the educational community and not for the sometimes abject instrumentalization that we have heard from some”, reacted Wednesday, February 22 on franceinfo Sophie Vénétitay, secretary general of Snes-FSU and professor of economics and social sciences. She was speaking after the death of a teacher in Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). This elderly Spanish teacher was stabbed by a student in her class at Saint-Thomas d’Aquin high school.

>> Teacher killed in Saint-Jean-de-Luz: reactions multiply to say “horror and emotion” after “the appalling tragedy”

“Inevitably, like all my colleagues, I am in shock and it is an immense pain that crosses the entire educational community”, confides Sophie Vénétitay. She directs her thoughts “to relatives, students and colleagues” of the victim. And she can’t help but think that “This teacher was murdered while doing her job”. These words are for her “extremely difficult to pronounce because they say the unspeakable, because they say the unthinkable”.

The educational community must find itself

The secretary general of Snes-FSU calls for “uniting with the entire educational community in the face of this new tragedy that affects us”. A minute of silence “will be respected” Thursday at 3 p.m. in all schools, announced the Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye, during a press conference in front of the Saint-Thomas d’Aquin high school. “It is particularly important that the educational community finds itself, that it is united in the face of this tragedy, that we can also exchange with the students”reacted Sophie Vénétitay before adding: “We know that we unfortunately from experience that pupils need to speak also in this kind of situation.”

“Students must be reminded that more than ever, teachers are with them, to build the school and to make them citizens of this country.”

Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU

at franceinfo

The trade unionist also wants to convey this message “to the whole country because we are talking about the means, we are also talking about the school that we are building for tomorrow”. Her pain is even more acute when she thinks that this teacher was killed in a classroom, a “symbolic place” since “this is where we live our profession, this is the place where we transmit things to our students so that they better understand the society around them”.

Sophie Vénétitay recalls that“no teacher should be afraid before entering his class” but she fears “this feeling will affect some colleagues in the coming days”. The secretary general of Snes-FSU believes that when the time for emotion and contemplation is over, “we will have to ask ourselves the question of what school is today and what we want to do with it”. She has “heard” the tributes paid by the Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron or even by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne but “we will have to take action to finally make the public service of education something that lives up to the ambitions given to it”.