Teacher slams French education in suicide note
Colleagues and politicians have reacted with shock and sadness after a dedicated school teacher in Marseille killed himself on the eve of the new school year. Pierre Jacque left a suicide note containing fierce criticisms of France’s education system.
The 55-year-old teacher of electronics at the Lycée Artaud in the southern city killed himself at his home on Sunday, just two days before the beginning of the new school year in France.
The suicide was “completely linked to the exercise of his profession,” according to a joint statement by Jacque’s colleagues, who called him “the father of a family, with great professional integrity and limitless erudition.”
In his suicide letter, Jacque condemned France’s education system in particular the “panic” and “roughness” of reforms by previous education minister Luc Chatel, as well as the policy of the current government, which he described as “an infamy.”
The former electronic engineer begins: “I am sharing with you my decision not to take part in the new school year in 2013.”
“Basically, I cannot accept in good conscience what the [teaching] profession, at least in my speciality, has become,” said Jacque.
“I could have set myself on fire in the middle of the schoolyard, the day the pupils came back to school,” Jacque wrote, referring to a shocking incident in 2011 when a maths teacher in the southern city of Beziers died after self-immolating in front of her students.
“That would have had a certain style, but I don’t have the virtue for that,” Jacque added.
“When you read his, I will already be dead,” he concluded.
Alain Barlatier, a teaching colleague of Jacque’s and a representative from the SNES-FSU union in Marseille, told AFP the 55-year-old had not been depressed, but was “extremely critical, like a lot of his colleagues.”
“The teaching profession is evolving into simply carrying out instructions, but [what Jacque started in] was a career where he could design and conceive things, and was in charge of his own work,” said Barlatier.
A team of psychologists has been put in place at the Lycée Artaud, and Barlatier and his colleagues have arranged for a memorial on Thursday, during which classes will be cancelled at the school.
Emphasising the “great consternation and emotion” of the teachers, Barlatier said on Monday: “We don’t want to just go back to work as if nothing happened.”
Daniel Robin, from the SNES-FSU union told The Local on Tuesday that the government must learn something from this "tragedy".
"For many years teachers in certain disciplines like technology have complained about the fact are they are asked to teach certain topics and subjects for which they have not been trained," Robin said.
"This puts teachers under enormous pressure and in an intolerable professional situation. How they can be expected to teach something they know nothing about?
"We want the government to take note of this tragedy and realize the difficulty some teachers are in. It needs to provide them with help on a personal level."
For his part, French Education Minister Vincent Peillon expressed to AFP his “deep sadness” at the death of Jacque, and vowed to “give back” to French teachers “the consideration they deserve.”
CLICK HERE to read Pierre Jacque’s letter in full (in French).
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The 55-year-old teacher of electronics at the Lycée Artaud in the southern city killed himself at his home on Sunday, just two days before the beginning of the new school year in France.
The suicide was “completely linked to the exercise of his profession,” according to a joint statement by Jacque’s colleagues, who called him “the father of a family, with great professional integrity and limitless erudition.”
In his suicide letter, Jacque condemned France’s education system in particular the “panic” and “roughness” of reforms by previous education minister Luc Chatel, as well as the policy of the current government, which he described as “an infamy.”
The former electronic engineer begins: “I am sharing with you my decision not to take part in the new school year in 2013.”
“Basically, I cannot accept in good conscience what the [teaching] profession, at least in my speciality, has become,” said Jacque.
“I could have set myself on fire in the middle of the schoolyard, the day the pupils came back to school,” Jacque wrote, referring to a shocking incident in 2011 when a maths teacher in the southern city of Beziers died after self-immolating in front of her students.
“That would have had a certain style, but I don’t have the virtue for that,” Jacque added.
“When you read his, I will already be dead,” he concluded.
Alain Barlatier, a teaching colleague of Jacque’s and a representative from the SNES-FSU union in Marseille, told AFP the 55-year-old had not been depressed, but was “extremely critical, like a lot of his colleagues.”
“The teaching profession is evolving into simply carrying out instructions, but [what Jacque started in] was a career where he could design and conceive things, and was in charge of his own work,” said Barlatier.
A team of psychologists has been put in place at the Lycée Artaud, and Barlatier and his colleagues have arranged for a memorial on Thursday, during which classes will be cancelled at the school.
Emphasising the “great consternation and emotion” of the teachers, Barlatier said on Monday: “We don’t want to just go back to work as if nothing happened.”
Daniel Robin, from the SNES-FSU union told The Local on Tuesday that the government must learn something from this "tragedy".
"For many years teachers in certain disciplines like technology have complained about the fact are they are asked to teach certain topics and subjects for which they have not been trained," Robin said.
"This puts teachers under enormous pressure and in an intolerable professional situation. How they can be expected to teach something they know nothing about?
"We want the government to take note of this tragedy and realize the difficulty some teachers are in. It needs to provide them with help on a personal level."
For his part, French Education Minister Vincent Peillon expressed to AFP his “deep sadness” at the death of Jacque, and vowed to “give back” to French teachers “the consideration they deserve.”
CLICK HERE to read Pierre Jacque’s letter in full (in French).
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