French school principal’s resignation over headscarf death threats sparks uproar

The headmaster at a high school and college in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats online following an altercation with a student, according to French officials.

In late February, he had asked three students to remove their headscarves on school premises, but one of them refused and an altercation ensued, according to prosecutors. He later received death threats online.

According to a school letter sent to teachers, pupils and parents on Tuesday, the principal stood down for "security reasons", while education officials said he had taken "early retirement".

"It's a disgrace," Bruno Retailleau, the head of the right-wing Republicans faction in the Senate upper house, said on X (former Twitter) on Wednesday.

Secularism and religion are hot-button issues in France, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim community.

In 2004, authorities banned schoolchildren from wearing "signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation" such as headscarves, turbans or kippas on the basis of the country's secular laws which are meant to guarantee neutrality in state institutions.

Teachers on ‘the front line’ of secularism

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Wednesday defended French secularism and said the state would be filing a complaint against the student over falsely accusing the headmaster of mistreatment during the incident in late February.

"The state... will always stand with these officials, those who are on the front line faced with these breaches of secularism,” said Attal, a former education minister, in an interview with the TF1 television channel.

The headmaster's departure comes amid deep tensions in the country following a series of incidents including the killing of a teacher, Samuel Paty, by an Islamist former pupil last year.

‘We can't accept it’

Politicians from across the spectrum on Wednesday said they were shocked by the resignation.

"We can't accept it," Boris Vallaud, the head of the Socialist deputies in the National Assembly lower house, told television broadcaster France 2, calling the incident "a collective failure".

Marion Marechal, the granddaughter of far-right patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen and a popular far-right politician herself, spoke on Sud Radio of a "defeat of the state" in the face of "the Islamist gangrene".

Maud Bregeon, a lawmaker with President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party, also took aim at "an Islamist movement".

"Authority lies with school heads and teachers, and we have a duty to support this educational community," Bregeon said.

A 26-year-old man has been arrested for making death threats against the principal on the internet. He is due to stand trial in April.

Early retirement

The principal at the Maurice-Ravel lycée in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats online following an altercation with a student last month, officials told AFP on Tuesday.

On February 28, he had asked three students to remove their Islamic headscarves on school premises, but one of them – an adult who was at the school for vocational training – refused and an altercation ensued, according to prosecutors. The principal later received death threats online.

In a message addressed to the school's staff, quoted by French communist daily L'Humanite, the principal said that he had taken the decision to leave for his "safety and that of the school".

Education officials said he had taken "early retirement".

Attal told TF1 the principal was supposed to retire in June, and decided to leave a little earlier.

The student had lodged a complaint against the principal, accusing him of mistreating her during the incident.

She told French daily Le Parisien that she had been "hit hard on the arm" by the headmaster.

But the Paris prosecutor's office on Wednesday told AFP that her complaint had been dismissed.

An investigation has been opened into cyber-harassment following the death threats against the headmaster.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)