Victim and attackers will not return to school at the start of the school year. The students implicated in the investigation into the attack on Samara, the 13-year-old girl hit in early April in front of her college in Montpellier, will go before a disciplinary council, the rectorate of this academy said on Sunday. The teenager will resume distance learning.
According to the Montpellier public prosecutor’s office, this attack took place “in the context of a group of teenagers who had the habit of insulting each other” on social networks and publishing photos there. Three minors aged 14 and 15 who admitted to having hit the teenager were indicted for “attempted intentional homicide” and placed under judicial supervision.
In order “to shed light on the facts”, the administrative investigation launched by the Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet, which had already been extended by a week in mid-April, will continue, as will the judicial investigation carried out under the authority of the public prosecutor’s office, according to the same source.
Samara’s state of health “has improved but will not allow her to resume classes on Monday, April 22,” wrote the rectorate in a press release on the eve of the end of the school holidays in zone C, where figure Montpellier. “In agreement with Samara’s mother, remote support is put in place, so that Samara can benefit from educational continuity from her home, while awaiting her return to an establishment,” he added. The young girl, seriously injured, was temporarily in a coma before coming out the day after the attack.
For their part, the students in question will for the moment be refused entry to their establishment and they will have to appear “in the short term” before disciplinary councils “in order to decide on the action to be taken for each”.
Listening unit and investigations
The listening cell which was set up the day after the attack, which occurred on April 2, in order to collect the words of students but also staff will remain active “at least the first week of the resumption of classes”. The same goes for the mobile academic security teams (EMAS) which will remain mobilized for at least the first week of the resumption in this college.
“Only administrative and judicial investigations will make it possible to clarify the facts and define responsibilities,” explained the rector Sophie Béjean, who asked, while awaiting their conclusions, to “not give in to any form of controversy which would harm in the general interest of students and the establishment.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had, following this affair and other cases of violence between young people near schools in recent weeks, promised “extremely strong” measures.