High schools threatened: students shocked, anxious, uncomfortable in class... Fear remains

More than a week after the ENT hacks and the sending of threats to middle and high schools in France, students and teachers are still marked by fear.

While the investigations opened by the Paris prosecutor's office in the context of the hacking of the Digital Workspaces of more than a hundred high schools and colleges in France continue, a new episode of terrorist threats took place this Thursday, March 28 near Nantes. As reported by France 3 Pays de la Loire, students at the Jean Perrin high school in the town of Rezé received messages conveying terrorist threats against their establishment as well as a malicious video.

A student from the Rezé high school told France 3 that a student in first grade shared with him the threatening message that she herself received in the evening, "at 11:30 p.m." as the student explains. The latter explained to France 3: "This message was a threat of an attack on our high school in Jean Perrin, a threat of explosion with an unhealthy video of someone being killed as an attachment. ." The student in question adds that he reported the incident to the police station at "7 a.m.".

France 3 indicates that the high school targeted by the threats was quickly the subject of a police intervention in conjunction with the rectorate. The high school boarding students were evacuated, accompanied by school staff, and the day students remained outside. Classes resumed in the morning after a little over an hour of checks which did not detect any threat on the high school grounds.

The media adds that after the incident, the president of the region, Christelle Morançais, in agreement with the Rector, Katia Béguin, decided to close the online platform. The students of the establishment were in shock, as the director of the Jean Perrin high school, Béatrice Drouin, told France 3: “We have a few students who felt unwell linked to the anxiety of the moment.” Another student from the establishment told France 3: "When we receive a message that says the establishment is going to explode, it's scary. I decided to come to class, even if the fear is there and that we feel threatened. I didn't want to watch the video, as a precaution."

As Libération points out, around 130 high schools and colleges in Île-de-France have been victims of this type of threat since the start of the incidents last week, according to figures from the Ministry of National Education. Libération details that around twenty high schools were targeted in Hauts-de-Seine and around fifteen in the Lille academy. This Thursday, the Ministry of Education counted a total of 323 threats in 44 departments within 22 academies.