Words that will probably not appease the indignation of the educational community. The Ministry of the Interior has requested in certain academies an “evaluation of the rate of absenteeism observed on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr”, but denies any “recording”, said Sunday the Secretary of State in charge of citizenship, Sonia Backès.
“The Ministry of the Interior and Overseas regularly studies the impact of certain religious holidays on the functioning of public services, and in particular within the school sphere”, indicated Sonia Backès in a press release. “It is within this framework that an evaluation of the rate of absenteeism observed on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, on April 21, was requested, in certain academies, from the heads of establishment,” the statement read.
SOS Racisme reacts strongly
“No nominative data was neither requested nor recorded at any time”, specified Sonia Backès who affirms that the initiative did not come from a desire to “file” students according to their confession. In the Toulouse academy, police asked the heads of Toulouse schools, by email, to tell them the number of students absent on the day of Eid al-Fitr.
Association, union or political leaders were worried about this police initiative, some like the former socialist deputy Jean-Christophe Cambadelis evoking “a file in the whole of the city”. The request from the police is “particularly shocking in that it associates Muslim religious practice with a question of security”, indicated SOS Racisme, recalling that the request to schools came from the departmental directorate of public security. (DDSP).
Families who want to be reassured
The Sud Education union, for its part, denounced “Islamophobic excesses” in the administration. “AESH colleagues and agents were refused leave of absence”, for the day of the party, unlike teachers, he also indicated. The Union of Mosques of France for its part asked for a “proper investigation”. “Families must be duly informed and reassured of the future of the information given by certain heads of establishments who, unfortunately, responded to the request of the police”, estimated the Union of Mosques of France.
The request of the police had been made directly to the establishments concerned, without the approval of the rectorate of Toulouse. “In no case do we carry out investigations of this kind,” Mostafa Fourar, rector of the academy, told AFP. A source close to the case had mentioned to AFP a “clumsiness” in the formulation of the request relayed by the referent police officers of National Education for the benefit of territorial intelligence.