Six years after Evaëlle’s suicide, on June 12, 2019, her former French teacher is still suspected of having played a role in the death of the middle school.
The trial of Pascale B., professor of French of a college in Val-d’Oise, opened this Monday, March 10, before the judicial court of Pontoise. The teacher is continued for “moral harassment on minor under the age of 15” at the damage of three adolescents, including Little Evaëlle, 11.
In the referral order to the criminal court, he was criticized by the magistrates instructing the file for having “humiliated regularly” Evaëlle, for having “isolated” and of having organized “hours of class life relating to school harassment during which she stigmatized it as a victim of harassment by her comrades and has been forced to answer questions.”
Since entering the Isabelle Autissier d’Herblay college in September 2018, Evaëlle was the target of bullying from several students. Croche and slaps, mockery … The daily life of the pre-adolescent had become a real hell. The magnitude is such that his parents had decided to file a complaint for harassment against several students, whose invective had become recurrent.
“She got angry with her because she was crying”
Then there is Pascale B., a French professor suspected of having participated in the harassment of Evaëlle, according to the majority of students interviewed during the investigation. The alleged facts would go back to an ankle injury which would have forced the middle school to use a workbook rather than notebooks in each subject. If all teachers accept the measure, only Pascale B. requires a personalized support plan, reports The point. According to Marie Dupuis, her daughter was taken to the subject on the subject at the start of each lesson.
To compensate for these underlying tensions, a meeting is organized by the establishment before the All Saints holidays. Sébastien Dupuis affirms, as part of the investigation opened a few months before his daughter’s suicide, having met Pascale B. To explain to her “difficulties” encountered by Evaëlle, “especially in his place at the back of the class while she was wearing glasses”. The professor would have repeatedly refused to move it, which would have contributed to his isolation, according to the investigating judge.
“My client proposed to wait for the return of All Saints’ Day to change places, which Evaëlle accepted,” said the lawyer for the accused, Marie Roumianta, in franceinfo. If the situation calms down for a time, it is turned again in February. During a pool outing, the students – who used to attack the pre -adolescent – accuse him of having stolen a sock. Back in French, Pascale B. decides to have an hour of “class life” and asks the girl why she feels “harassed and excluded”.
While Evaëlle tries to answer, her comrades treat her as a liar according to testimonies from comrades: the little girl melts in tears. The professor would have ordered him “badly” to stop crying, then said the college student to her parents. “The teacher asked us what was wrong and what bored us at Evaëlle. She got angry with her because she was crying,” confirms a pupil to the point. Coming back from school, the pre-adolescent entrusts her mother that she had spent “the worst day of her life”.
The teacher denies as a whole
A version that the main concerned disputes. “She said to the students: ‘You calm down, we are going to talk about everything that is wrong’, while they were arguing when they arrived in the classroom, after an EPS lesson. They then apologized to each other,” says the lawyer for Pascale B. “I wanted the students to talk to each other. That they understand that it was not possible to talk to each other,” said the teacher.
Informed of this episode, Evaëlle’s parents refuse to return to class. The college student is changed from an establishment. His schooling goes better – the staff having been warned of his situation – even if “conflicts between comrades could arise”, according to the main assistant of the college Georges -Duhamel, located 800 meters from the previous one. On June 21, 2019, a new altercation with a classmate shaken the girl. Back home, she tells the event to her mother who moved it. A few hours later, she was found hanging from a scarf hanging on her bed-hezzanine by her father.
By learning of the death of Evaëlle, Pascale B. experiences compassion, she says a few months later, in police custody. “The whole case was a huge shock for her. We cannot remain insensitive to the death of an 11 -year -old girl,” said her lawyer. The teacher will be prosecuted for “manslaughter”, before benefiting from a dismissal for this accusation at the end of the investigation. The judge had considered that it was not “possible to determine the specific elements that led to his death”, Evaëlle having been faced with many difficulties before her death.
“I loved my job, I practiced it with passion. It is difficult to be incriminated in this way,” said the accused in court. Since 2021, the teacher can no longer take lessons to minors and has an obligation of psychological care. “I still have more than thirty-three years of experience. Errors, we all do it, but specifically and especially there, I do not think I have committed it.” she added.