The very young Lucas, 13, ended his life last Saturday at his home in Golbey, near Épinal in the Vosges. A suicide on the background of school harassment and homophobia, while the teenager assumed his homosexuality, reports RMC.
For several months, the boy suffered mockery and insults in his neighborhood, but especially in college. According to our colleagues, Lucas and his mother would have reported “mockery” linked to the sexual orientation of the teenager from the first parent-teacher meeting, in September 2022.
Lucas’ relatives denounced in their hearings “acts of harassment committed by students at his college, because of his homosexuality, for several months,” said the public prosecutor, Frédéric Nahon, in a press release. The family had not filed a complaint, but “the facts had been reported to the National Education, which had received the minors”.
The investigation was entrusted to the Epinal police station in order to “establish the reality of the facts denounced and the causal link with the suicide”, adds the prosecution. The autopsy carried out on January 11 confirmed the thesis of suicide.
“The investigation will allow us to find out more, but what we do know is that at the beginning of September, Lucas’s mother and Lucas opened up about teasing about his sexual orientation, he was reporting it,” explains to the Parisian Valérie Dautreme, academic director of the Vosges.
But the establishment claims to have reacted. “The situation was taken very seriously by the head of the establishment, by the head teacher”, continues Valérie Dautreme. For us, the situation was settled. Lucas said afterwards that things were settled. When there was the second parent-teacher meeting late last year, Mom and Lucas said things were going better and Lucas was fine. »
A psychological unit has been in place in the establishment since Monday, for students and teachers who have not seen Lucas go badly lately. “Such news is something terrible”, declares Valérie Dautreme, who expressed her “personal emotion” and “that of the entire educational community of the department”.
Online kitty to pay for the funeral
A online kitty was opened to financially support the family in the organization of Lucas’ funeral. More than 7500 euros were collected Thursday morning. A civil ceremony, this Saturday in Épinal, will only be open to relatives.
First lady Brigitte Macron has made the fight against school bullying “her fight”, she explained on Wednesday in our columns, in front of the readers of Le Parisien. “I am in favor of raising awareness among teaching staff and those who work in colleges and high schools to better identify cases of harassment,” she said.