At the Maurice-Revel high school in Paris, the astonishing resignation of the principal threatened with death

A message announcing the departure of the principal was sent this Tuesday March 26 to parents, students and staff members of the Maurice Ravel high school.

Almost a month to the day after the altercation which triggered the now media affair at the Maurice Ravel high school, parents, students, teachers and other members of the board of directors of the school, located in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, received, this Tuesday, March 26, 2024, an internal message indicating that the principal had “left his duties for security reasons”. A reason that the rectorate does not confirm, however. If he does indeed certify the principal's departure, the latter in fact prefers to speak of "personal convenience".

At the beginning of March, the affair was made public. Originally, an altercation between the head of the Parisian establishment and a student, an adult, enrolled in the first year of BTS. The facts would have occurred on Wednesday February 28, 2024. In her version, the young woman claims that the principal would have “pushed and hit” her by asking her to remove her veil. “I had my hat and my hood on my head as well as my veil, but which was not completely on,” she indicated, in comments reported by Le Parisien at the beginning of the month. And continued: "The principal came towards us and started shouting at my girlfriend. He saw that she was taking off her hat and her veil, so he came directly towards me. I turned around, he pushed and hit me hard on the arm."

In the prosecution's version, it is reported that the principal would have called three students to order about the ban on wearing the veil within the school grounds. One of them then ignored the head of the establishment, which led to the altercation. After the intervention of the police, the matter did not stop there. If the student had filed a complaint "for violence not resulting in incapacity for work", the altercation had been publicized on social networks and the principal had become the target of death threats. He then in turn filed a complaint for "act of intimidation towards a person participating in the execution of a public service mission".

According to a source close to the matter, which Le Parisien reported on Tuesday, the principal thought that the matter would calm down and that he would be able to finish the year in high school. “But these are serious threats. So we had to protect him and also protect the students and staff of the high school. It’s a concerted decision,” specifies the source. According to the daily, this is the first time in his career that the former principal of the Maurice Ravel high school finds himself in such an affair.