900 Teachers Face Armed Threats in Single School Year in France

Since the beheading of Samuel Paty, an unsettling term has entered into common parlance in French schools.

iskola, pad, diák, üres (Forrás: Pexels)

Faced with an increase in violence, teachers often adopt a strategy of self-censorship. In sensitive subjects, such as natural sciences or history, they don’t broach the topics that cause trouble so as not to get reprimanded or challenged by students or parents over the content they teach.

Downplaying radical Islam is the phenomenon that most worries the authors of the senate report. They note that the expression “faire une Paty”, in reference to the beheading of the history teacher, has passed into the everyday language of teachers who live with this threat uttered by some students on a daily basis.

"I saw a teacher at the end of his day, who was delighted about ‘not having suffered a Paty’ today,” explained the LR senator.

The scale of the problems identified prompted the senators to draft 38 recommendations to improve the situation. 

Cover photo: Illustration (Source: Pexels)