What caused the death of Stéphane Vitel, principal of the Pierre-Simon-de-Laplace college in Lisieux (Calvados), found lifeless on August 11 in the hall of his establishment where he had gone after being notified shortly before 6 a.m. of the triggering of an intrusion alarm in the college. The autopsy carried out on Monday August 14 did not allow this to be established since it “could neither exclude the intervention of a third party nor establish with certainty a natural cause of death”, said the Lisieux prosecutor’s office in a brief press release, adding that additional analyzes had been requested. The first findings show a trace of a break-in on a secondary door of the college, according to the same source, but no disorder was found inside the building.
Despite the vagueness surrounding the circumstances of the tragedy, the death of this 48-year-old man, who was about to leave on vacation from his personal home when he received the alert and made a detour for verification, has caused a stir within the community of school leaders, for whom the situation of this principal who died in his college is widely echoed. “We all project ourselves into what happened to Mr. Vitel, we could all have been in the same configuration”reports Bruno Bobkiewicz, high school principal and general secretary of SNPDEN-UNSA, the majority union for management staff.
For many, the death of Mr. Vitel appears as “a terrible lesson” which, whatever the conclusions of the investigation, must give rise to reflection as to the measures to be taken so that the heads of establishments are not brought, “for professionalism”to expose themselves to any danger.
Security companies, “too high a cost”
The regulations require that a headteacher must take “all provisions, in liaison with the competent administrative authorities, to ensure the safety of persons and property, the hygiene and the healthiness of the establishment”. This responsibility does not, however, include security duties when the establishment is closed, nor intervention in the event of an intrusion alert. In practice, however, “Many of us move when the establishment’s alarm goes off”notes Mr. Bobkiewicz, who has done it himself “dozens of times, including in the middle of the night”. In almost all cases, it is a false alarm.
“There may be a misinterpretation by our interlocutors as to the extent of our responsibilities on non-working days, in particular linked to the fact that we have company accommodation on site”, says Agnès Andersen, secretary general of ID-FO. The management staff but also certain administrative staff and principal education advisers, housed in the immediate vicinity of the establishment by “absolute necessity of service”are thus among the people who can be contacted in the event of a problem in the middle or high school outside its opening hours, and in particular in the event of an alarm being triggered.
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