The national center for the fight against online hatred of the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on Friday, June 17 following a complaint filed by the principal education advisor (CPE) of the Lycée Charlemagne. According to the prosecution, which confirmed the facts on Monday, she was the victim of death threats and online harassment.
The facts date back to Thursday, June 16 when a young girl wearing a veil presented herself for the baccalaureate exams at her examination center at the Lycée Charlemagne (Paris). The CPE would then have banned her from entering the premises if she did not remove her veil. Then, according to a police source, the versions of the two women diverge. The counselor assures that the student refused to remove her veil, while the latter claims to have removed it but not to have been able to enter.
According to the elements collected by the rectorate of Paris, the candidate “would have initially refused to remove her veil” in order to enter the Lycée Charlemagne, “despite the reminders to the law made on several occasions by the personnel of school life”.
Threatening Tweets
That “would have led to tense exchanges between the candidate and an education staff, before the candidate finally agreed to remove her veil, and that she could be accompanied in her examination room”. Tweets quickly followed on social networks increasingly threatening, until the identity of the official is revealed.
However, since the assassination in October 2020 of Samuel Paty, professor of history and geography, endangering the lives of others by disseminating information on private, family and professional life has become a crime.
Noting that this incident “had been reported unilaterally on social networks and that death threats had been made against certain staff of the Lycée Charlemagne”the Paris Academy took Friday morning “all arrangements, in close collaboration with the judicial authorities and the prefectural services, so that their personal safety, as well as that of all the students and staff of the Lycée Charlemagne, can be ensured”said the rectorate.
Open investigation
The Academy of Paris “Condemns in the strongest terms the death threats and cyber-harassment to which its staff are currently subjected, and wishes to assure them of its full support in this ordeal”she added.
This investigation into death threats, online moral harassment and endangering the lives of others by disseminating information relating to private life was entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and hate crimes (OCLCH). The authorities ensure that the civil servant and her establishment are, for their part, the subject of a “security and vigilance”.
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