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CRIME

Pupils at French religious school removed over abuse claims

French social services have taken 42 pupils from an ultra-orthodox Jewish religious school near Paris into care, local authorities said on Tuesday, as the institution faced allegations of years of abuse.

Published: 2 February 2022 08:38 CET
Pupils at French religious school removed over abuse claims
Police are investigating the claims. Illustration photo: Martin Bureau/AFP

The Beth Yossef school in Bussieres, around 60 kilometres east of the capital, was hosting “many underage American and Israeli children who do not speak French in abusive conditions”, said Laureline Peyrefitte, prosecutor in nearby Meaux.

The children, aged 12 and above, allegedly suffered “being locked up, confiscation of their identity documents, poor conditions, acts of abuse, lack of access to education and healthcare, and no possibility of returning to their families,” she added.

Authorities in the Seine-et-Marne department said in a statement that the children were placed in temporary care after being removed from the school, set apart from the village on its own grounds.

Police are also holding 16 of the school’s staff.

An American boy escaped from the school in July and sought shelter at the US embassy in Paris.

Others followed, and Israeli public television has been investigating the school for months.

“We found ourselves with around 30 witness accounts dating back to the 2000s from former pupils saying they suffered violence,” documentary filmmaker Dubi Kroitoru told AFP.

The journalists sent all their information to French police in July.

To relatives, “it seemed like the Harry Potter school, out in the green spaces,” said Jerusalem resident Rivka Azoulay, 26, whose 13-year-old brother had started at Beth Yossef just last week.

In conversations from a payphone at the school, the boy had so far seemed “happy”, Azoulay added, complaining that the French authorities had not been in touch with families.

France’s chief rabbi Haim Korsia told AFP: “It’s unacceptable for children’s lives to be put in danger, the charges are terrible.”

“The conditions they were living in are unacceptable, full stop,” he added.

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CRIME

French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

A 14-year-old girl has died of a heart attack in eastern France after her school locked down to protect itself from a knife attacker who lightly wounded two other girls, an official said on Friday.

Published: 20 April 2024 08:58 CEST
French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

The teenager “was rescued by teachers who were very fast to call the fire department. She died at the end of the afternoon,” education official Olivier Faron said.

The girl’s middle school in the village of Souffelweyersheim closed its doors on Thursday afternoon after a man stabbed two other girls aged 7 and 11 outside a nearby primary facility.

“Sadly this pupil underwent an episode of very high stress that led to a heart attack,” Faron said.

A mother outside the middle school on Friday morning said her son in first year of secondary had also been scared during the lockdown the previous day.

“Whereas in the primary school they made it more like a game, perhaps here it was a little too direct,” Deborah Wendling said.

“He thought there was an armed person in the school. They could hear doors slamming, but in fact it was just other classrooms locking down.”

Faron defended the teachers.

READ ALSO: Schoolgirl threatens teacher with knife as tensions rise in French schools

“There is no perfect solution,” he said.

But “we will analyse in depth what happened. If there are lessons to be taken from this, we will take them.”

The two girls hurt in the attack were discharged from hospital on Thursday evening with only light wounds.

Police have arrested the 30-year-old assailant, and a probe has been opened into “attempted murder of minors”, the prosecutor’s office said.

It was not immediately clear what had motivated him, but it did not appear to be “a terrorist act”, it said.

He was “psychiatrically fragile” and appeared to have stopped his medication.

The incident follows a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Thursday announced measures to crack down on teenage violence in and around schools.

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