Teacher’s Controversial Letter Sparks Debate on Muslim Students in French Schools

This teacher with more than 20 years of professional experience sent an open letter to her fellow teachers on the subject, reports Midi Libre. In this correspondence, she elaborates on her argument.

"Our relationship with our students and their families so that Samuel Paty did not die for nothing? I’ve been thinking about it for days and a host of memories of details, of situations come back to me. Faced with the rise of Islamist ideology, we too often - and I include myself in this ’we’ - show a lack of lucidity, even a guilty attitude of denial," she explains.

She mentions recent facts: school outings where in a class of thirty children, twenty minced steaks from the midday meal are thrown in the trash because the meat is not halal. Another fact: one day, a mother came to enroll her child and would have refused to shake the principal’s hand because he was a man.

"Islam is such a strong grid of reading that humanism, the Republic and its laws have no weight in everyday practices," she notes. "I don’t want to condemn anyone, but I tell myself that benevolence is not the acceptance of everything. The fear of being seen as fascists pushes us to round off the edges."