Teacher sets herself on fire
A woman has died after she set herself alight with petrol in her school's playground
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A MATHS teacher has died in hospital after having poured petrol on herself and set herself alight in the playground of her school in Béziers, Languedoc-Roussillon.
The 44-year-old woman had been airlifted to hospital by helicopter after pupils and teachers and then firefighters intervened.
France Soirsaid witnesses told them she ran away as people tried to help her, shouting to pupils “it’s for you”.
Education Minster Luc Chatel, who has visited the woman in hospital, said she was “psychologically very fragile” and had been receiving treatment for depression. An inquiry would be held to find out the details of what had pushed her to such a “desperate act”, he said.
The woman has been described as an “old-school teacher” who clashed with pupils at the 3,000-strong lycée who saw her as too strict. The day before she had met with some of them to explain her approach, but the attempt reportedly did not go well.
She had also been suffering difficulties in her private life, including the recent death of a loved one, the French press said.
The prosecutor of Béziers described the incident as “an attempted suicide”, carried out “of her own free will”, that was “linked to her work”.
A team of counsellors is working with pupils in the school today.
A former teacher who has written a critical book on the malaise in some in French schools, Charlotte Chapot, told Europe 1 she was “not surprised”.
“When you go into a classroom there is always at least one teacher in tears, one who is hysterical, screams and shouts and insults flying,” she said, adding: “It happens that people end up turning the violence they undergo on a daily basis either against themselves or someone else.”
The vice president of the Syndicat National des Lycées et Collèges, Albert-Jean Mougin, told 20 Minutes the teaching profession was “more and more difficult, more exposed”. Teachers were under increasing pressure, which could lead to “distressing acts,” he said.
