The emotion of an entire community. A hundred people paid tribute on Tuesday in front of his former college in Livarot-Pays-d’Auge (Calvados) to Stéphane Vitel, principal of a college in Lisieux found dead in his establishment last week after an anti-alarm went off. -intrusion. The investigation has not at this stage made it possible to elucidate the circumstances of this death.
“He was a passionate person who invested himself in public life but also in his profession to train children. The number you are today proves the trace he left, “said the mayor of Livarot, Frédéric Legouverneur, in front of the participants, including many students and parents of students from the Fernand Léger college who had rubbed shoulders with Stéphane. Vital.
candles and flowers
“He knew the first name of each of us and made no difference between the students”, underlined Mathéo, 14, remembering a principal “at the same time strict, straight and always in benevolence”. The participants laid candles and flowers in front of the Fernand Léger college before observing a minute of silence in his memory.
Stéphane Vitel, 48, had left the establishment at the start of the 2022 school year to direct the Pierre-Simon de Laplace college in Lisieux. It was there that he was found dead early Friday morning. He was about to leave on vacation with his wife and their two children when he was informed of the triggering of an anti-intrusion alarm in the college.
His wife claims he was assaulted
He had then made a detour to get there, entering the building alone. Worried that he would not return, his daughter had come in and found him unconscious. The emergency services intervened quickly but could not resuscitate the 40-year-old.
Stéphane Vitel’s wife, Jeanne Mailhos Vitel, affirmed to several media her certainty that he had “been attacked, a blow to the head I believe”. She also said she saw a car “go off in a hurry” before she entered the college. A trace of break-in was identified on a secondary door of the college.
A listening unit for staff
The prosecution had quickly qualified this death as “suspicious”, but the autopsy performed on Monday “could neither exclude the intervention of a third party nor establish with certainty a natural cause of death”. Additional analyzes were required.
The rectorate announced that “listening cells” would be set up from August 17 in the establishment for staff, as well as for students at the start of the school year. A moment of meditation will be organized in tribute to Stéphane Vital “as well as times of exchange to discuss his disappearance and accompany everyone when classes resume”, specifies the rectorate.