Student representatives in the final year class in the northern city of Rouen wrote to the principal to voice “shock” at being urged in an English lesson to pay respect to a self-declared Al-Qaeda militant who killed seven people.
A French teacher was suspended Friday for allegedly urging her class to observe a minute’s silence for serial killer Mohamed Merah, the day after he was shot dead by police.
Education Minister Luc Chatel had called for the teacher to be suspended after her class reported she called Merah a “victim” and said his links to Al-Qaeda were invented by the media and “Sarko”, referring to President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“An immediate suspension has been decided along with a ban on entering the school,” the local education authority’s Florence Robine told journalists, adding that the suspension did not imply any guilt.
Student representatives in the final year class in the northern city of Rouen wrote to the principal to voice “shock” at being urged in an English lesson to pay respect to a self-declared Al-Qaeda militant who killed seven people.
Most of the class walked out, though some remained “to try to understand what she was talking about,” their letter said.
[…]
