A letter, the suicide of a 15-year-old teenager and a controversy. At the start of the school year, in Poissy (Yvelines), Nicolas committed suicide after having suffered harassment at school. Facts which had been reported to his establishment and of which the rectorate had been informed. The latter responded with a letter revealed last week and which sparked controversy with the words used: “supposed harassment”, “unacceptable comments”…
In an interview with Parisian, the former rector of the Versailles academy Charline Avenel, claims to have “not been aware” of the controversial letter sent to Nicolas’s parents. ” I am sorry […] for not having been able to ensure that the distress of the families was taken into account. » She was “on leave” at the time, as was her deputy, but assures that “this has nothing to do” with this lack of information.
A letter also sent to the parents of a little girl who reported sexual assault
She also presents “apologies to Nicolas’s parents” in her name and on behalf of the institution she headed at the time of the events, describing this letter as “inadmissible”. “I was devastated to learn of the death of this student. When I discovered the existence of this letter a week ago in the press, I was devastated,” she says.
Contacted by AFP, Charline Avenel indicated that she did not wish to comment further on this matter “immediately”. In the interview, she explains that she also did not know that a letter of the same ilk had also been sent to a family who had reported a sexual assault at the beginning of the year on their little girl by an after-school leader in Andrésy (Yvelines).
“Human error” or “systemic problem”?
“I have validated the principle of letters addressed to families which threaten teachers”, letters called “comminatories” to which National Education staff can have access to recall legal provisions. “But never for correspondence with families whose children are victims of harassment. I discovered that these letters of disapproval were sent, and I fear in large numbers, indiscriminately to families in distress,” she admitted.
She indicated at this stage that she could not say whether these shipments were “a human error or a systemic problem which goes beyond the Versailles academy”. The administration’s responses to the families of Nicolas and the little girl who accused a host of sexual violence sparked strong reactions within the government, which described the first letter revealed as “disgrace” and “strongly condemned” the second.
The Minister of Education announced the launch of an audit on the management of cases of harassment from September 2022 to September 2023 in each academy. Gabriel Attal “will go to the Versailles rectorate on Monday morning to take stock with the new rector”, appointed in mid-July, announced rue de Grenelle.