About 650 students will not be able to join the benches of their school on September 4th. Of the 13 schools “particularly degraded” during the riots following the death of Nahel, five will not be able to reopen at the start of the school year, said Tuesday the Minister of Education and Youth, Gabriel Attal.
“What I can tell you today is that during the riots, 250 schools were damaged, that among these 250 schools, 60 schools were damaged. a fire starting and that of these 60 establishments, 13 of them were particularly degraded”, declared the new tenant of the rue de Grenelle during a visit to an elementary school in Dijon, targeted by an incendiary device .
These are the Jean-Zay kindergartens in Mâcon; Robert-Desnos in Petit-Quevilly (Seine-Maritime); Etang-des-Noës in La Verrière (Yvelines) and elementary schools Marguerite-Perey (Strasbourg) and Bois-de-l’Etang (La Verrière), specified the minister’s services.
Schooling solutions
“Other schooling solutions” have been found for these schools, assured the minister. “It will be a viable solution,” he said, like bus transportation to another school. “It is this message of reassurance that we want to convey,” said the Minister. “School is the soul of the Republic. We must show the French that the school is standing up, ”he continued, after a visit to the elementary school Champollion, located in the sensitive district of Grésilles, in Dijon.
The establishment had been targeted by an incendiary device on July 1 and a classroom had been completely destroyed. But the return of its 182 students can be done on time, “without delay”, promised its director Michel Hautin, after showing the burnt classroom where a smell of grilled was still perceptible.
The school is located in the popular district of Grésilles, which had already been the scene of violent clashes in June 2020 between members of the Chechen and North African communities. Regarding the school fire, the preliminary investigation is “still in progress”, the prosecution told AFP. Tags had been discovered on the walls of the establishment after the fire, asking in particular “Justice for Nahel”.