Student crisis: Valérie Pécresse proposes to “emergency” deploy cameras in 50 high schools in Île-de-France

“Our high schools must be sanctuaries.” Guest of the RTL morning show this Thursday, November 12, the president of the Île-de-France region Valérie Pécresse declined a series of measures to restore order in establishments after the damage that has occurred since the start of the student movement.

After an elected official from the Ile-de-France region was hit in the chest by a bottle containing gasoline in front of a high school in Chelles (Seine-et-Marne), Valérie Pécresse first proposed “urgently” deploying a video surveillance device to protect establishments and identify those responsible for similar acts in the future. “I am going to propose to the principals, as part of their emergency powers, to install video protection in the circulation areas of these high schools in the coming weeks,” she declared. And added: “The students who return with mortars are with their faces uncovered. So if we put cameras inside high schools we will prevent violence from coming into the high school. We must protect our high schools from this external violence.” Fifty high schools, in which there have already been mortar attacks inside the high school, would be affected.

Suspension of aid “for culture, sport, the Imagine R pass”

Concerning the damage already carried out, in particular “170 broken gates” in the territory, the president of the Île-de-France region reiterated a strategy already mentioned in recent weeks: “we are going to adopt the principle of the breaker pays”. Of the 100 complaints filed by heads of establishments, “the region will take civil action against the thugs,” explained Valérie Pécresse. And if they are minors “we will call the parents for civil liability”.

Beyond the legal aspect, the former LR presidential candidate intends to apply financial sanctions for any student who has been “excluded for violence or damage” by his establishment. “He will no longer have access to optional aid in the region, for culture, for sport, for the imagine R pass, for cycling, for the driving license,” she announced, assuming to reserve the aid “for young people who have not committed violence”.

The Île-de-France Region, where the high school movement started in mid-September in particular to demand better study conditions, estimates the amount of damage caused by the damage to establishments to be 10 million euros.