Faced with the large number of reports and complaints in this area, the justice system lacks the means to carry out investigations properly. The few cases that come before a judge more often result in educational measures than in punitive sentences.
On January 7, 13-year-old Lucas ended his life: an investigation was opened and four teenagers have been found guilty of “school harassment” in early June. The children’s court of Epinal (Vosges) did not retain a causal link between these facts and the suicide of the teenager, but their lawyers appealed on Monday, June 19.
In Pas-de-Calais, less than two weeks after the suicide, on May 12, of Lindsay, 13, five people were indicted, including four minors. All were placed under judicial control, “a very rare measure in this type of case”observes Aurélien Martini, deputy secretary general of the Union of magistrates and deputy prosecutor of the judicial court of Melun (Seine-et-Marne), where he heads the minors’ section.
The judgments rendered in these two cases and the speed of their processing are not representative of the judicial handling of school bullying cases. Before Lindsay’s suicide, her parents had also alerted the college on numerous occasions and filed two complaints in February, the teenager’s stepfather told the Parisian. In vain. “A collective failure”recognized in early June the Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye.
After this tragedy, Elisabeth Borne assured that the government intended to make school harassment the “top priority” of the start of the school year in September 2023. “Complaints must be facilitated and sanctions must be commensurate”, said the Prime Minister. Because more and more parents, judging the reaction of schools to be insufficient, are considering the legal route.
A “collective momentum” to fight against a “health scourge”
Laure Boutron-Marmion represents the family of Dinah, a 14-year-old Alsatian who committed suicide at the end of 2021 after being the target of homophobic remarks in her college. The lawyer says she is in high demand. From simple “ask for advice on a phenomenon that is still in its infancy, so that it doesn’t get too big, when calling for help after a first suicide attempt”, parents and parents’ associations turn to her. Laure Boutron-Marmion says she feels “a collective momentum towards increasing legalization of harassment cases”.
A magistrate from Ile-de-France in charge of minors thus reports a large number of reports, “whether on the part of establishments or hospitals, which report situations evoking harassment”, but also a large number of complaints, “minors and their families”.
“It has been a subject for at least ten years, revived on an ad hoc basis according to certain cases.”
A magistrate from Ile-de-Franceat franceinfo
For Laure Boutron-Marmion, the media coverage of this “sanitary scourge” helps to raise parents’ awareness of a phenomenon that tended to go unnoticed, sometimes hidden behind “repeated school failures, phobias school, headaches, stomach aches…”
A priority “among all the others”
Within the police stations, these investigations are most often entrusted to the local family protection brigades, made up of investigators specializing in domestic violence and violence against minors. In the most serious cases, the cases end up in the services of the minors’ brigades of the departmental security. In theory, these two units have great agility. “We can order hearings in schools very quickly: if we become aware of a fact at 1 p.m., we can send an investigator to hear the minor within the following hour”, assures Aurélien Martini. In practice, the time and the means are lacking. “School bullying is a priority among all the others”he observes.
“Criminal policy circulars tell us that harassment is a priority, as are domestic violence, the fight against narcotics, online hatred, offenses of abuse of weakness…”
Aurélien Martini, Deputy Secretary General of the Union of Judgesat franceinfo
His colleague from Ile-de-France recognizes that investigations into the facts of school bullying are not always carried out in such a way “diligent” than for other offenses. Result: the police very often seize these files several months after the facts. And sometimes, minors have already changed establishments, situations have changed, “Things have been put in place to calm the situation and the parents especially do not want us to hear the harassers, for fear of rekindling the difficulties”, says the magistrate.
Florence Rouas, a lawyer in Paris, has several family complaints being processed. Faced with the slowness of the investigations, she systematically advises them to act on their side by changing the harassed child from school “as soon as possible”.
The difficulty of proving harassment
Because the School bullying investigations can be laborious. Especially when the facts happen online. It is necessary to gather evidence, such as screenshots from different social networks, knowing that most of them allow to leave ephemeral messages, which do not leave traces. “You also have to identify bullying children, who sometimes have assumed names,” notes Florence Rouas.
The situation becomes more complicated when several harassers are involved and it is therefore necessary to assess the responsibilities of each, to prove that these are indeed repeated acts. The challenge for investigators is to characterize the harassment and show that it has “for purpose or effect a deterioration of living conditions, impairing health, as stipulated by law”, underlines a judge for children from the north of France. Which is far from obvious, according to Aurélien Martini: “Often, the deterioration of a person’s condition is multifactorial, it is complicated to attribute a single cause to it.”
A large number of complaints are thus closed without action, for “insufficiently characterized infringement”. This is the case of the one filed by the parents of Farès, 12, whose photos showing him the broken nose and the swollen face, after he had been pushed down the stairs of his college, in Carcassonne (Aude), shocked a lot. “While there is no doubt that young Farès was seriously injured when he fell down the college stairs, no student could be identified as having pushed him., explained the prosecutor to France 3 Occitanie, to justify the dismissal of the complaint, on June 18. The family of Farès, which assures that the boy was subjected to violence “since September”, appealed this decision. “We have provided enough evidence”, lamented his mother. The prosecutor clarified that she still intended to initiate criminal proceedings concerning another act of violence, committed in the college’s sanitary facilities.
Educational responses first
For Laure Boutron-Marmion, there is actually no “material difficulty in gathering evidence of harassment” but one “intellectual difficulty” establishments and investigators, who “minimize” a lot of facts. “A lot of mean little phrases will be seen as taunts or mockery and not as insults or bullying”denounces the lawyer, who points a “denial” from the judiciary. She particularly regrets that it is so difficult to link the harassment to the suicide of the victim.
For her, the sentences against harassers must be up to par, because “teenagers are very aware of what they are doing”. The Penal Code has also strengthened this aspect, by making bullying at school a specific offence, with the law of March 2, 2022. The culprits incur up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros when the facts result in incapacity for work less than or equal to eight days and up to ten years in prison and a fine of 150,000 euros in the event of the victim’s suicide or attempted suicide.
It should be noted, however, that children under 13 benefit from a presumption of non-discernment and can only receive educational sanctions, such as a citizenship course, with a specific section dedicated to harassment. Above the age of 13, the penalties are those provided for by law. “But the code of criminal justice for minors requires education to take precedence over sanctions”recalls the judge, which welcomes Jean-Pierre Bellon, professor of philosophy and director of the ReSIS center (Center for resources and systemic studies against school bullying).
This pioneer in the fight against school bullying “does not believe at all that prison sentences, which will not be applied anyway, can scare anyone. The harassers are mainly young people lost, who would do anything under pressure from the group .There are few real perverts”he assures franceinfo. “The answers are therefore above all educational, by generalizing the pHARE device, ddeployed in colleges and primary schools, but still unevenly”, according to him.
If you need help, if you are worried or if you are confronted with the suicide of a member of your entourage, there are anonymous listening services. The Suicide listening line can be reached 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 01 45 39 40 00. Other information is also available on the website of the Ministry of Solidarity and Health.
To report any situation of harassment or cyberbullying, whether you are a victim or a witness, there are free, anonymous and confidential telephone numbers: 3020 (harassment) and 3018 (cyberharassment), reachable from Monday to Saturday, from 9 a.m. at 20 hours. Other information is also available on the website of the Ministry of National Education.