The affair is now taking a national turn. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced Wednesday that the State “was going to file a complaint” for “slanderous denunciation” against the student who had accused the principal of her Parisian high school of having assaulted her after she refused to remove her veil.
“The State, the institution, will always be alongside its agents, those who are on the front line facing these attacks on secularism, facing these attempts at Islamist entryism into our educational establishments,” argued the head of government on TF1, the day after the announcement of the departure of the principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school, who has been threatened with death since the incident. The high school student's complaint was dismissed for "insufficiently characterized offense", the prosecution announced on Wednesday.
The principal “simply did his job”
“I decided that the State was going to file a complaint against this young woman for slanderous denunciation,” declared Gabriel Attal, believing that “secularism” is “constantly put to the test”. “We see, there is a form of Islamist entryism which manifests itself in particular in our educational establishments,” he also declared. “This entryism, these attacks recently caused two victims in the National Education family, Dominique Bernard and Samuel Paty,” he said. These two teachers were killed in Islamist attacks, Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in October 2020 and Dominique Bernard in Arras, in October 2023.
VIDEO. Paris: threatened with death, the principal of Ravel high school resigned
On Wednesday afternoon, the Prime Minister received the principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school for an hour. “I really want to pay tribute to him because he has great dignity in this ordeal. He was due to retire in June. (…) Some advised him, for security reasons, to leave a little earlier,” explained the head of government, according to whom the principal “simply did his job.”
“He asked a young woman to apply the law, that is to say, to remove her veil in the school establishment. This young woman refused him and, even worse, she tried to intimidate him by accusing him of having molested her or of violence,” he said. “These accusations” were “then relayed on social networks”, including “by certain elected officials, I am thinking of a member of France insoumise”, and “gave rise to death threats against this principal “, he asserted.
Read alsoAt the Maurice-Ravel high school in Paris, after the departure of the threatened principal: “It all took on such proportions”
He did not specify which rebellious elected official he was implicating. At the beginning of March, the Paris MP Danielle Simonnet estimated in a message published on “Also, an investigation must be initiated. Did the principal hit the student? Respect for not wearing the veil does not justify any physical violence,” she continued.
The socialist mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo also spoke on Wednesday with the high school principal, to assure him of “her total support and solidarity”.