“Percentage of absenteeism during the Eid holiday” … A request for information that does not pass

The information is made public in full Ascension Bridge. Police officers asked the heads of schools in Toulouse to tell them the number of students absent on the day of Eid al-Fitr. A request that aroused the indignation of the educational community, we learned Friday from concordant sources.

Before the holidays, some schools (schools, colleges and high schools) received an email from the “Toulouse-Rive Gauche” School Police Security Correspondents. This was part of a “request from the intelligence services” to raise “the percentage of absenteeism […] during the Eid holiday,” explained the SUD Education union 31-65 in a statement sent on May 16.

The rectorate claims not to “be associated”

This request was made without the approval of the rectorate of Toulouse: “In no case do we carry out investigations of this kind”, declared to AFP Mostafa Fourar, rector of the academy. “If someone took this initiative, National Education is absolutely not associated with it,” he added. Eid al-Fitr, a celebration marking the end of Ramadan for Muslims, took place this year on April 21, the eve of school holidays in the Toulouse academy.

“As soon as the heads of establishments and school principals informed us of this request, instructions were obviously given not to respond to it,” said Mostafa Fourar. “We see this as a serious drift, a stigmatization of Muslim students and an attack on their freedom of conscience. Of course, we cannot argue that this is not required for a Christian holiday because all Christian holidays are public holidays! We recall that freedom of conscience is a fundamental freedom in the legal sense of the term, guaranteed by many founding texts”, develops the union SUD Education 31-65.

According to a source familiar with the matter, “it is a clumsiness”. “The territorial intelligence services went through the referent police officers of the National Education, their message was poorly formulated, but asking for an absenteeism rate is not filing or personal data”, underlined this source.

“An attack on secularism”

This territorial intelligence work is part of a context of “renewed attacks on secularism in schools” during the Ramadan period, according to this same source, with for example “challenges for social networks to film themselves with a veil” or refusals to participate in singing and music lessons.

Pupils are subject to the obligation of regular attendance, but leave of absence can be issued to families who request it for a religious holiday. “In the event of their child’s absence, the parents must immediately inform the director of the school of the reasons for their absence, but it is not up to the services to ask if they are going to be absent, in accordance with respect for the confidentiality of beliefs”, according to the Ministry of National Education.

“We do not understand how we could have this initiative, without it having been discussed anywhere. This raises questions because clearly the state services have not spoken to National Education, “said Pierre Priouret, secretary general of Snes-FSU Toulouse. “SUD-Education 31-65 will call on the School Security Police Correspondents, the prefecture and the rectorate to request explanations regarding this procedure and to demand the official withdrawal of this injunction which is akin to denunciation”, added the union.

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