This is a new report after similar facts denounced in June in several establishments in the Riviera capital. In a joint press release published this Monday evening, the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi and the rector of the Nice academy Natacha Chicot indicate that they “were informed that two CE2 children had organized a prayer today in the grounds of their school.”
Both asked the director “to summon and receive without delay the parents of the students concerned to recall the fundamental principles of secularism”. They point out that it “is imposed on everyone, in all our public schools, during class time as well as during extracurricular time” and affirm: “We will not let anything slip by”.
“Minute of silence in homage to the prophet”
In June, Christian Estrosi had already denounced “attempts to intrude religion into the sanctuaries of the Republic” with the organization of “Muslim prayers by CM1 and CM2 children”. These facts concerned “three schools” and children aged 8 and 9, according to the rector. In one of the establishments, a student had been “at the initiative of a minute of silence organized in homage to the prophet”, she detailed.
In a statement with the mayor of Nice, the Minister of Education at the time, Pap Ndiaye, considered that these “very serious attacks on the principle of secularism” were “intolerable” and should “be the subject of a firm, collective and resolute response.”