France’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, says a teenage girl will be sued by the state for falsely accusing her headteacher of striking her in a heated exchange over her wearing an Islamic head-covering.
The headmaster at the Maurice-Ravel lycee in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats online after an altercation with a student in February. He had asked three female students to remove their Islamic headscarves on school premises, according to current French law, but one of them refused and an altercation ensued, according to prosecutors. He later received death threats online.
According to a school letter sent to teachers, pupils and parents on Tuesday, the principal stood down for “security reasons”, while education officials said he had taken “early retirement”.
„I have finally taken the decision to quit my functions,” he explained, „out of concern for my own safety and that of the establishment.”
The Islamist threat to French schools is taken extremely seriously since the murder of two teachers – in 2020 and 2023 respectively.
Prosecutors said two people had been detained in connection with the death threats. Their identities have not been revealed, but the education ministry said they had no link with the school.
Police were sent to patrol around the school, which also received a visit from Education Minister Nicole Belloubet.
Officers found no evidence that the headteacher had struck the girl, says the BBC, and now Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has stepped in to say she is to be taken to court for making false allegations.
„The state… will always stand with these officials, those who are on the frontline faced with these breaches of secularism, these attempts of Islamist entryism in our education establishments,” he said.
Politicians from both left and right expressed outrage that the career of a respected teacher should be ended by a hate campaign on the Internet.
In a separate development, several Paris schools were forced to close on Wednesday after they received bomb threats from apparent Islamists.
Last week around 30 other schools in the Paris area received similar threats, accompanied by a video of a beheading.
