Nice: was prayer at school, in fact, just “child’s play”?

The machine may have gotten carried away too quickly in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes). While the city and the rectorate denounced several cases of prayer in schools last week, facts concerning three CE2 students at the Pierre-Merle school, revealed Thursday by the town hall, seem much less obvious. According to Nice-Matin, which relies on several sources, by way of prayer it would have in fact been a question of a simple “child’s game” of 8 years old to scare each other… having absolutely nothing to do with the religion.

“Apparently they saw a piece of white plastic in a tree that reminded them of a ghost. They then more or less called, invoked, a white lady, I don’t really know what gesture they made…” the grandfather of one of the students in question told us this Monday, November 20. According to him, his grandson, “still very little who has a blanket”, and at least one of his two other friends involved are not of the Muslim faith, which is sometimes the case in recent cases of prayers in school.

Summons to the town hall

Confusion or not, the affair surrounding these three children led to a summons to the town hall for the families. Individual meetings during which everything would have gone well. “I would like to thank the parents present and salute the spirit of responsibility. It clearly appears that the family units have demonstrated no desire to infringe the principles of secularism and the Republic,” reacted Mayor Christian Estrosi in a press release recalling his vigilance on this issue.

“All reports must be taken seriously. There is no reason a priori to question the report of childhood professionals, nor even to contest the procedure for meeting families that we desired with National Education. Without dramatizing if other reports took place, we would maintain this procedure,” Jean-Luc Gagliolo, deputy delegate for Education at Nice town hall, said in a press release on Monday. In the latter, the town hall recalls that “municipal agents and the rectorate confirmed gestures which could be compared to attacks on secularism”. “The city of Nice and the rectorate remain vigilant and will always seek to understand when a report is made. Several reports were received last week. Parents are systematically received. »

A communication that displeases families: “I understand that we can make errors of interpretation, it’s not easy, but it would have been nice to say that here, it had nothing to do with a prayer, laments the grandfather. This is what hurt us the most! » On the side of the rectorate which refuses to discuss this issue in particular, we recalled this Monday that “the law of 2004, whatever the religion, must be respected”. White lady or no white lady, “it’s not a game when facts come to light”.