A new white march is organized this Sunday, October 22 in Liévin, to pay tribute to Lindsay, this 13-year-old girl, victim of school bullying, who committed suicide last May.
Lindsay, 13, and other young teenagers in the same situation of school bullying, ended their lives. This raises public awareness; That’s the feeling we get, anyway. A new white march is organized this Sunday, October 22 in Liévin, to pay tribute to Lindsay.
The government has since announced new measures at the end of September: a unique number, 3018, against school bullying, empathy courses in the students’ curriculum, and a questionnaire, also anonymous, submitted to all students, from CE2 to the third. The view of sociologist Jean Viard on this serious social issue.
franceinfo: Does this mean, Jean Viard, that we can really change things concretely and quickly on this subject?
Jean Viard: There are two topics: suicide and harassment. In France, we have poor suicide rates. And what’s more, after the great pandemic, suicide rates, particularly among young girls, increased. So it is time for France to focus on training each of us to spot the signs that lead people to suicide. There are countries that have made considerable progress.
So there is the question of detecting the risk of suicide, and on the other hand, there is this question of harassment. So here, I want to say: school is going well. Because, when 93% of college students say that they are happy, that they feel good in their college, it must be said. Likewise, when we see the teachers, when we see the two teachers Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard who were murdered, they are magnificent people and most of the National Education teachers are committed, fantastic people. And most students are happy in colleges.
Once we have said that – and it is important to remember it, because it is after all the heart of the process – first of all there is violence among children, there are children who bring inside the school the contradictory speeches of their parents. There is all the fear of difference, how children learn the difference in colors, in gestures, the disabled, people who stutter, it’s part of education, in fact.
So I think it’s always the same question: how do we return to a society of tolerance, and how do we talk about that, how do we discuss it? And that’s what’s happening at the moment, there’s a magnifying glass effect, so we’re talking about it, it’s increasing. But the reality is there. No doubt many people have gotten into the habit of looking away, saying: these are kids’ problems. Well no, it’s not kids’ problems.
We must listen to the words of children, it’s the same with sexual problems, it’s the same with incest problems, we must take them seriously, that doesn’t mean that they always tell the truth, of course, but it’s true for adults too. But we must remember that the words of children are a sacred subject that must be listened to.
I’m going back to the figures you started to give. A figure from National Education: 93% of middle school students who say they feel good, or completely good in their establishment, but there are around 7% who explain that they are victims of harassment, at least five cases of repeated violence. There are also all the witnesses, the authors too, from near or far, almost all colleges are concerned, it is a massive phenomenon.
How can we explain that it took us so long to get to grips with it? Is it that we weren’t looking, we weren’t looking at what the school was doing anymore?
Jean Viard: I think that these phenomena must have always existed, except that the violence has changed: you no longer have the right to slap your kid. The relationship to education, the relationship to violence, basically, the form of authority has changed. We are in societies where confrontations are considered to be more civilized within the family sphere, which is very good news. But ultimately, we also ask the same thing, within the sphere of school.
I would tend to say it that way. I have no clue to tell you what the rate of harassment was 10 or 30 years ago. I don’t make a comparison. I looked, found nothing. I’m not saying there’s nothing, but I didn’t see anything. But I think we don’t have the same expectations.
And what is happening is that the school is being put back at the center of society. It is the beating heart of the Republic. We had made school a service. And remember Jules Ferry, the Jules Ferry schools, you go anywhere, in France, it’s the same school, it’s the same building, with, marked “girls” above a door , “boys” above the other, that is to say that there was a unity of the object, which corresponded to the status of the master, with his gray blouse, who welcomed the children in the morning.
We’re not going to go back to that, but what I mean is that we need to make school the great monument of our societies again, that’s what is being done and being done. discuss. I do. I plead for the school to have a color. The firefighters are red, the Post Office is yellow, and the ambulances are white, why doesn’t the school have this unit?
The school must become visible again in the Republic. We made mistakes, we let the school become a technical service. We are going to redo the heart of it, because that is what will ensure that all our children are used to being together, whatever their skin color, religion, etc. There is a gigantic task ahead in a world that is going to be difficult.