In September 2023, the month when the ban on the abaya came into force, “a total of 838 incidents of attacks on secularism were recorded in schools, colleges and high schools. In September 2024, it was 110: the decline is very clear”, detailed Anne Genetet, the Minister of National Education, in an interview with La Tribune Sunday, while Sunday marks the first anniversary of the assassination of French teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras.
The minister, alongside other members of the government, will participate in a ceremony in this city in tribute to this teacher who was stabbed several times by a former student, accused of Islamist radicalization. Even if “secularism is threatened” and has “enemies”, the minister welcomes that “training in the issues of secularism […] is being deployed more and more: in the 2023-2024 school year alone, 267,000 ministry agents were trained.
Towards an increase in hours devoted to secularism?
Anne Genetet also wants to “increase the volume of hours devoted to secularism and the values of the Republic (36 hours today)” in the initial training of teachers, ensuring that this is “a demand from the field”. Asked about the teacher slapped in Tourcoing (North) by a student to whom she had asked to remove the veil, at the start of the week, the minister confirmed the sending of “human reinforcements” to the high school “to restore a climate peaceful school”.
“From now on, a threatened professor obtains functional protection in 100% of cases. Four thousand ministry agents benefited from it last year,” she underlines. But she also wants to “modify the law so that the National Education institution can file a complaint for its agent, which would strengthen the protection that we owe to our teachers”.
On Monday, a minute of silence will be observed in middle and high schools across France in tribute to Dominique Bernard and Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher murdered by a young radicalized Islamist on October 16, 2020, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines). ).