PARIS — A girl attacked as she left school, a middle school student beaten to death by a gang near an institute. You are raising the alarm in France about increasingly uninhibited and uncontrolled violence among teenagers. A fear that does not exist only beyond the Alps. In Germany yesterday a thirteen-year-old stabbed a homeless man in the streets of Dortmund after an argument degenerated into insults and then into a fight. And a few days ago a shooting broke out in Finland, with a twelve-year-old killing a peer and wounding two others, later explaining to the police that he had been a victim of bullying.
Shamseddine, 15, died yesterday in hospital after being beaten bloody on Thursday in front of a middle school in Viry-Châtillon, a suburb of Paris, by a group of boys. Samara, 13, was punched and kicked outside Montpellier on Tuesday. The girl’s mother explained that her daughter, a Muslim, “wore makeup” and “dressed European”, suggesting that she was targeted for religious reasons. The investigating prosecutor’s office did not mention links with the Islamic religion, but reported “rants” between students which exploded first on social media and then within the institute.
[[(gele.Finegil.Image2014v1) Finlandia, allarme sparatoria in una scuola a Vantaa: tre minorenni feriti ed un sospetto, anch’esso minorenne, arrestato]]
In both cases it seems that alongside the underlying reasons – the “betrayed” religion for Samara, who did not wear a veil and wore make-up, belonging to a rival group or gang for Shamseddine – the hypotheses of romantic rivalry are making their way . «Love dispute», «personal dispute» for Shamseddine, considered by all to be a calm boy. In this case the investigations are taking their first steps and the interrogation of a seventeen-year-old arrested last night is awaited. In Montpellier, however, for the Samara case, three minors between 14 and 15 years old have already been arrested and confessed to having beaten the victim. The ambush was apparently organized by an observant Muslim who detested Samara and took as her pretext some unveiled photos of herself published on Snapchat by someone. She blamed Samara, and she would take revenge on her. Having undergone surgery, the girl came out of the coma induced by doctors to sedate her, but she is struggling with the consequences of a cerebral hemorrhage.
“We will be inflexible, we will protect the school from this unbridled violence,” promised Emmanuel Macron who yesterday morning was visiting an elementary school for autistic children just when the news of Shamseddine’s death in hospital arrived. Violence among teenagers is becoming a theme of the campaign for the European elections on 9 June, with the right accusing the government of not stopping the insecurity and resulting violence among teenagers.
“School must remain a sanctuary for our children and teachers” underlined Macron. «We will be inflexible about what happens at school and around school – he added -. There are no bad habits that need to take hold. When there is a teacher threatened, we defend the teacher.” The mayor of Viry-Châtillon, Jean-Marie Vilain, appeared in tears in front of the cameras when speaking about Shamseddine’s death: «It’s a tragedy, I think of the mother… we all have to re-learn how to truly punish, to be strong and stop.”