At a school in Issou, near Paris, a teacher was accused of racism and Islamophobia for showing her students a 17th-century painting of naked women. Her colleagues decided to support her by exercising their right to stop working.
On December 11, like the previous Friday, teachers at the Jacques Cartier Institute in Issou (Yvelines, in the Paris region) decided to exercise their right to stop work. The cause? During an art class last Thursday, a French teacher decided to show her students the painting “Diana and Actaeon”, by the Cavalier d’Arpin (Giuseppe Cesari).
Right to retract
The class could have proceeded normally, but some students reported feeling embarrassed, others looked away at the naked bodies. And very quickly, rumors took hold of the situation: the teacher wanted to scandalize the students, particularly the Muslims, she was racist… Some vengeful parents also fueled the rumors.
This incident was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, according to trade unionist Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of SNES-FSU, who denounced a “very degraded climate” and deplored the “lack of support (.. .) from the establishment, the academic management and the rectorate” despite “several warnings”.
Tired after a difficult start to the course, marked by a sharp increase in the number of incidents, the teachers decided to stop work to protect their colleague, whom they consider to be “defamed”.
“The right to stop work refers to an accumulation of facts, including this one, but it is one fact among others,” declared the mayor of Issou, Lionel Giraud, present Monday in front of the school . An email sent to parents on Friday to explain the exercise of this right refers to a “particularly difficult situation” at school.
“Increase in incidents”
“Notable unrest, increased incidents and increased cases of violence currently characterize daily life at our school,” adds the message, which does not mention the incident with the artwork.
Monday afternoon, Minister of Education Gabriel Attal made a brief visit to the school. “At French schools, authority is not questioned, it is respected. In French schools, secularism is not called into question, it is respected. At French school, we don’t look away from a painting, we don’t cover our ears in music class, we don’t wear religious clothing. In short, in a French school, the authority of the teacher or the authority of our values are not called into question,” he stressed on his return.
The assassination of Professor Samuel Paty in October 2020 had a profound impact on the profession, which regularly faces attacks against secularism and challenges to its credibility.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
