Seine-et-Marne: an elected official doused with gasoline in front of a high school in Chelles, an investigation opened and a suspect arrested

Tuesday morning, in front of the gates of the Gaston-Bachelard high school in Chelles (Seine-et-Marne), Angéla Avond came to support parents who were asking for classes to resume. The regional elected official and deputy mayor was doused with gasoline by a young person, while she tried to prevent the burning of trash cans near the establishment, according to a police source cited by AFP.

The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, condemned on X “the attack on a regional councilor, deputy mayor of Chelles” by a student. “We are no longer here as part of a high school movement, this is urban violence,” he writes, calling for “the most firm and determined response.” Traveling to a college in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the Minister of National Education, Édouard Geffray, also condemned the facts, referring to “behavior which is called a crime”. The elected official “must obviously have the support of the whole of society, of the whole political community,” he declared to the press.

The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, also gave her support to the elected official. “I condemn this act with the greatest firmness,” she wrote on X, before adding: “Anyone who attacks an elected official is attacking democracy and we will not let anything go.”

Valérie Pécresse indicated on X that Angéla Avond had filed a complaint for attempted murder against a high school student. The president of the Île-de-France region indicates that the elected official was alongside the parents mobilized to allow classes to resume when a bottle of gasoline was thrown “in her face”. She specifies that Angéla Avond is “completely in shock”, announces that the Region will take legal action and invites those who wish to send her a message of support. “The judicial response must be relentless. Calm must return to our high schools,” she concludes.

In a press release sent this morning, the City confirms that Angéla Avond was doused with gasoline and announces that “a suspect has been arrested” and that “an investigation is underway”. The text does not specify either the age of the suspect or the qualification retained by the courts. The municipality assures that it will grant its “functional protection” to the elected official. The town hall describes the attack as a new episode in a series of incidents around Chellois high schools. She claims that, the day before, a high school student fired fireworks into a classroom, towards her teacher and her classmates. In his press release, Mayor Brice Rabaste judges that “the violence is now limitless” and requests an emergency meeting with the prefecture, the national police, National Education and the Region.

The incident occurs while high school students, students and teachers were mobilized again on Tuesday. At 9:30 a.m., 49 high schools were blocked in France, or 1.3% of some 3,700 establishments, according to the Ministry of Education.