France’s government promises to root out school bullies, reacting to wide anger over child suicides

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This article was published 27/09/2023 (1105 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PARIS (AP) — Block school bullies from social networks. Give all children weekly empathy classes. Put anti-bullying experts in schools and courts.

These are among promises the French government made Wednesday in response to growing nationwide concern about bullying, triggered by recent suicides of children whose families say they were bullied online or at school.

Many parents feel France’s education system is behind its peers in Europe in addressing the issue, and is only gradually catching up.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the country will do more.

“You are not responsible for this,” Borne said in a message for children targeted by bullying. “What you are going through is unacceptable, intolerable. You are not alone.”

Some 1 million students in France have experienced bullying at school in the past three years, Borne said. A government statement cited studies tracking bullying both at school and online.

Borne promised more personnel dedicated to fighting bullying in schools, and more state-funded counseling for victims of bullying.

The plan also includes proposals to toughen punishment for bullying, such as banning perpetrators from social networks for up to a year, confiscating bullies’ cellphones and imposing prison terms of up to 10 years for those linked to a suicide.

One trigger of the recent renewed concern was the suicide of a 15-year-old on his first day back at school in the Paris suburb of Poissy earlier this month. The Education Ministry later acknowledged that bullying against him had been reported in the previous school year.

The school said it was addressing the problem. But when his parents complained that the bullying continued, administrators sent the family a letter threatening a lawsuit for unfounded accusations and accusing them of being un-constructive. That set off an uproar, and the government has called the letter a “disgrace.”

As part of new plan announced Wednesday, Education Minister Gabriel Attal said weekly ‘’empathy classes’’ will be added to the curriculum in some schools starting in January and in all schools starting in the next school year, citing similar programs in countries such as Denmark.

The lawyer for the family of a 15-year-old girl who took her own life in 2021 after school bullying said France is waking up to the problem later than some other European nations but is now making progress — notably with the passage of a law last year that criminalized school bullying.

“We’re about 10 years behind some of our European counterparts, notably the Nordic countries,” said the Paris lawyer, Laure Boutron-Marmion.

She cited Borne’s new plan among signs that France is taking the issue more seriously.

“The awareness is there,” Boutron-Marmion said in an interview with The Associated Press.

France’s renewed focus on bullying is emboldening some victims to come forward. They include lawmaker Virginie Lanlo, who this week told the lower house of parliament that she had recently written to a person who bullied her as a child.

In one of the excerpts from her letter read in the parliament chamber, she said: “Years ago, I suffered bullying, humiliation and touching at your hands. These actions wrecked my childhood and adolescence. I will never forget these hours of pain and distress.”

“This young girl was me,” Lanlo told fellow lawmakers. “And I don’t believe that I’m the only one on these benches to have suffered bullying. One child in four is a victim. How many speak up?”

Addressing the National Assembly after Lanlo, Attal, the education minister, recited the names of 10 children and teenagers — aged from 10 to 15 — who killed themselves in recent years following allegations of bullying. He said fighting bullying is his top priority.

“Fear must change sides,” Attal said.