the lawyers of the Averroès high school prepare their response
Wednesday December 13, the lawyers of the Averroès high school clarified the follow-up they intend to give to the decision of the prefect of Hauts-de-France who, on December 7, withdrew the association contract with the State of the establishment , who is accused of financial irregularities and teaching “contrary to the values of the Republic”. In the “coming days”, they will refer the matter to administrative justice in the context of an interim order, they announced, in order to suspend the prefect’s decision, until it is annulled on the merits. We are faced with a “a politically organized cabal” aiming “a high school whose excellence has been recognized, but which is disturbing because of the identity it carries”justified Mr. Vincent Brengarth.
The first emergency, confirmed the director of the establishment, Éric Dufour, also present in front of the press, is to save the end of the school year by suspending the withdrawal of the contract. “Such a brutal decision, taken in the middle of the year, plunges students and teachers into disarray,” he admitted, before specifying that a psychological unit was opened in order to listen to everyone.
“Everyone wonders how they will end the year”
Concretely, the termination of the contract means that teachers will no longer be paid by national education from next month. “Everyone is wondering how they are going to end the year, how they are going to be paid, where they are going to be reassigned next year,” described Éric Dufour. In the longer term, if the establishment were to continue its activity outside of the contract, “will we have the means to continue paying these teachers who make the establishment famous? This is the whole question that animates us today,” he clarified.
The students, for their part, “are all very affected by what is happening”, he extended. “Some are wondering whether or not they should apply elsewhere for next year, when registrations are already closed in private education,” the director continued. The situation of future high school graduates is even more uncertain: “They have started to be evaluated as part of the continuous assessment of the baccalaureate, and wonder if their grades will be recognized or not”, according to Éric Dufour, who reaffirmed his confidence in the Ministry of National Education to avoid such a mess.
“A liege man by Gérald Darmanin”
Beyond that, Averroès’ lawyers mainly intend to have the merits of a decision that has been described in turn as “toxic”, “tragic”, of “political stunt”, or “French-style McCarthyism”. For this, Mr. William Bourdon, Vincent Brengarth and Paul Jablonski will argue that the Averroès high school is the victim of an investigation carried out by the prefect’s services, “liege man of Gérald Darmanin”which had “announced upon his arrival that he would have the skin of high school”.
“Averroès is the most controlled high school in France, explained Vincent Brengarth. Only an investigation by the regional court of accounts, which we contest, is not favorable. This means that the State, by retaining this simple investigation against all others, disavows the work of its own inspectors. It is paradoxical to say the least. »
A “discriminatory” decision
“If the school defends itself from any victimizing posture” and refutes the idea of undergoing any “Islamophobia”, specified William Bourdon, the prefectural decision, “under the guise of an appearance of legality, in fact constitutes a discriminatory political decision”, because if “in certain Catholic establishments, homophobic, racist or anti-Semitic remarks have been noted, but the contract has never been broken.” He is therefore preparing to denounce a “inequality before the law”.
“What makes us confident, he noted, This is because the Council of State has censored numerous recent decisions of the Ministry of the Interior for lack of proportionality. In the same way, the elements which can be criticized against Averroès, assuming that they exist, are certainly not serious enough to justify abandoning the contract. »
