In France, two teachers have been murdered by Muslim students. So you can’t blame educators for being a little skittish: “Teachers strike after Muslim threats over nudes in art class.”
Staff have gone on strike at a school near Paris saying they fear for their lives after Muslim pupils and parents voiced anger towards a teacher who displayed a Renaissance painting of nude women.
This is the painting:
The teacher showed it to an art appreciation class of 12 and 13 year olds.
Several turned away from the picture, saying their religion forbade such works. False rumours then circulated that the teacher had singled out Muslims for insult and made racist remarks.
Staff walked out on Friday after parents complained to the school and the female teacher’s name and the false claims were published on social media. The school was closed yesterday and the education ministry sent inspectors and promised more staff in response to what the teachers said was a hostile atmosphere.
Teachers see themselves on the front line of the ethnic and cultural conflict between much of mainstream France and the country’s large Muslim population. The flare-up and falsehoods over the art class echo the claims fuelled by social media that led to Paty’s murder in 2020, the teachers’ union, SNES, said.
I think they are right about being on the front lines. Mr. Paty was beheaded.
Teachers at the Issou school said that pupils had admitted lying about events in their art class but that the damage had been done. “We’re dealing with vindictive parents who prefer to believe their children than us,” they said.
The school’s head teacher recently appealed to the education ministry for more staff and resources to deal with deteriorating discipline at the school, saying that fights and death threats and threats of rape had become common among pupils.
Death threats and threats of rape are common? So it didn’t start with the painting. And, by the way, it seems a little odd that kids who threaten to rape their girl classmates are offended by the sight of naked women in a painting.
The clash of cultures is acute:
In another episode in the tense relations between religion and the education system, the state has announced that it will halt funding for the country’s biggest state-subsidised Muslim high school. The Averroes school, in Lille, was teaching Islamic doctrines rather than conveying the moral values of the French republic, the authorities said.
In modern times, at least, immigrants have generally been expected to respect, if not adopt, the culture into which they have moved. But many Muslims refuse to do this, and their insistence on remaking Europe in their own image is the reason for the conflicts that have convulsed Europe in recent years.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.