A 47-year-old man has been sentenced to six months in jail after threatening to behead a female primary school teacher who disciplined his son at a village primary school in France.
The man received the sentence following a fast-track hearing on Thursday, six days after the incident occurred in Le Fauga, a village of approximately 2,600 people located just outside Toulouse in southwestern France. The teacher had disciplined the man's son for disruptive behaviour at school.
The teacher has been granted official protection and placed on sick leave following the threat. French Education Minister Édouard Geffray announced his support for the educator on Thursday, stating on social media that the threat was inadmissible and that he was providing her with full support along with her colleagues, students, and their families.
Geffray characterized the reported facts as extremely serious. A complaint was filed and functional protection was granted to the teacher, according to the minister's statement.
In a separate statement, Geffray said: "No teacher should be afraid to do their job. Attacking one of them is attacking the entire institution."
Over the summer, Geffray steered through legislation aimed at protecting school staff from a "significant risk" to their safety or health posed by a member of a student's family. The minister indicated that this case would trigger one of the first applications of the decree established under the new law.