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Last Updated: December 12, 2023, 10:24 IST
French Education and Youth Minister Gabriel Attal leaves following the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, November 22, 2023. (Reuters File Photo)
French school crisis erupts as a 17th-century nude painting sparks religious fury. Education Minister visits, and false claims on social media face discipline
Muslim parents in a French school raised concerns over a 17th-century Renaissance painting of nude women shown to students in a commune west of Paris, according to media reports. The school staff in Issou reportedly refused work on Monday amid the crisis sparked by the incident.
The painting, “Diana and Actaeon” by the Italian painter Giuseppe Cesari, portrays a Greek mythology story in which the hunter Actaeon bursts in at a site where the goddess Diana and her nymphs are bathing. The work, which shows a naked Diana and four female companions, is held at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
French media reports said false claims of racism against the teacher circulated on social media, exacerbating tensions. French Education Minister Gabriel Attal visited the school, vowing to discipline pupils making false claims on social media.
Enseignante intimidée dans les Yvelines: “Il y aura une procédure disciplinaire à l’endroit des élèves responsables de cette situation”, assure Gabriel Attal pic.twitter.com/eQlVGFRWyE— BFMTV (@BFMTV) December 11, 2023
‘Final straw’
A pupil’s parent emailed the school director that his son was prevented from speaking during that discussion and that he would file a complaint. Amid complaints and a lack of support, teachers exercised their right to stay away from classrooms, citing palpable discomfort and a rise in violence. Sophie Venetitay, secretary general of the Snes-FSU secondary school teachers’ union, said it was the “final straw” for teachers at the school, who had complained of a “very degraded climate” as well as a “lack of support” from management despite “several alerts”.
The tensions come after a series of attacks against teachers in recent years. A French court on Friday convicted six teenagers for their role in the 2020 killing of Samuel Paty outside his secondary school near Paris by a radicalised Islamist. Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was stabbed and beheaded in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in October 2020.
His murder came after messages spread on social media that Paty had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Nearly two months ago, another radicalised Islamist stabbed his former teacher Dominique Bernard to death in the northern town of Arras.
(With agency inputs)
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