Teacher suspended following minute of silence for children killed in Gaza: Teachers rally outside the Ministry of National Education

At the call of the main unions in the sector (CGT, Sud, SNES-FSU), around 200 people gathered outside the Ministry of National Education in Paris on Tuesday, June 17, to denounce the weakness of French diplomacy in the face of the genocide in Gaza .

"This deadly devastation particularly affects children who have been murdered en masse (...). It is understandable that this concerns us especially as teachers," explains the leaflet signed by the Paris branches of the CGT Educ'action, Sud-Education and FSU-SNES unions. The latest UNICEF report estimates the number of children killed at nearly 16,000 and estimates that 95% of schools have been damaged since the start of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In this context, a minute of silence was granted to the students by a teacher at the Janot-Curie high school in Sens, in the Yonne department. The Dijon academy's rectorate suspended her at the end of March for " failure to respect the obligation of neutrality ."

Beyond this case, several education authorities have sent letters to schools, reminding teaching staff working for Palestine of their duty of confidentiality. This is the case at the Flora Tristan middle school in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, which received a letter on June 12, after around fifteen people gathered in front of the school with placards in support of the Palestinian people.

On the one hand, the ministry is reminding teachers of their duty of neutrality. On the other, Education Minister Élisabeth Borne, stated in the Senate on February 13, that teachers have "the pedagogical freedom to address the fate of the victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly the French hostages and the victims of October 7, to pay tribute to them." This duality is raising questions among education staff, according to the CGT (General Confederation of Labour). "The state is a bit frozen, and this is being felt by the ministry, which is becoming tense. As a result, the education authorities below are paralyzed."

However, it is just "empathy, nothing political," believes the CGT Educ'action of Paris. These "symbolic actions" are intended to express the fact that "as teachers, we are extremely affected by the ongoing genocide," concludes Arnaud Cora, co-secretary of the union and a mathematics teacher in Paris.

During the oral exams for brevets this year, "many students chose to skip over genocides. In their presentations, they gave examples from Rwanda, but especially from Gaza. It's a subject they understand," says Léo Matias, a biology teacher at Guillaume Budé secondary school. He denounces an "atmosphere of repression" in education and advocates giving students all the keys to understanding the situation in the Middle East.