The assassination more than a year ago in Arras of teacher Dominique Bernard more than a year ago by a terrorist, who had entered the Gambetta-Carnot school group, had given the idea of installing security gates at the entrance to schools and launched an audit on their security. Five hundred “at risk” establishments had been identified, of which nearly 400 were equipped with “anti-intrusion” gantry. But with regard to recent events, the question returns to the carpet again, in particular to generalize them.
In January, an 18 -year -old high school student was stabbed by another pupil near a high school in Privas (Ardèche). In February, a 17-year-old high school student was seriously injured in the stabbing in the courtyard of his establishment in Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine). At the end of March, a 17-year-old died after having received a stab, in front of the Louis-Armand vocational high school in Yerres. These misfortunes have been followed almost each time of announcements of the Minister of National Education: students in possession of a stabbing weapon in a school will now systematically go into a disciplinary council, and “unexpected bags of bags” will be organized, she promised. And of course, the famous debate on porticos has been Relaunched on a radio chain.
What are we talking about, exactly? Airport gantry?
But what are we talking about, exactly? Metal detection gantry, as in airports? This type of gantry had been advocated in 2009 by the Minister of Education Xavier Darcosduring the visit of an establishment in Haute-Garonne, where a teacher had been seriously stabbed. Six years later, after the 2015 attacks, Valérie Pécresse and Laurent Wauquiez had followed suit. But everyone had to backtrack, simply because the measurement is impossible to set up. For a high school of 800 students, it would take at least one hour at the entrance to the establishments to bring everyone, at the time found a teacher-researcher.
“We brought in a company specializing in a Parisian establishment, and the conclusion was that the flow is so important that it is not possible,” explains Nicolas Bray, academic secretary for Paris of SNPDEN-UNSA, union of management staff. No establishment in France would have ever installed, say Nicolas Bray and Olivier Beaufrère, national secretary of the same union.
On the other hand, there are many filtering gantries with badges. According to Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, contacted by 20 minutes285 establishments out of the 304 public high schools in the region would be equipped with a filtering system at the entrance, whether they are tripodes, a Parisian metro, turnstiles, height, or entrance airlocks, with a double door. But for what efficiency?
“This does not prevent mass killings”
Among the opponents of the security gantry, there are those who judge that the device is simply not very efficient. This is the case of the principal of a Bron high school, in the Metropolis of Lyon, which told In an interview with BFM TV in October 2023 That the gantry card readers had been vandalized several times, and were therefore “more replaced” because “too expensive”. In other establishments, the installation of a filtering system has proven too complex, due to constraints on the building, or too large entry points, recognizes the region. In an interview with Parisian In 2017, the university professor emeritus in education sciences Eric Debarbieux also estimated that porticos could create more insecurity than security, by slowing down the entries, thus creating “dangerous crowds before establishments”. Especially since the security gates do not always avoid dangerous intrusions. “In the United States, they have vigils at the entrance to establishments, they secure considerably, and mass killings are not prevented,” said Nicolas Bray.
More generally, opponents and opponents of porticoes judge that they maintain a false idea, according to which violence comes from outside. However, recalls Eric Debarbieux in Zero pointed? A political history of violence at schoolpublished in January in Editions, the links that release, exogenous violence is completely minimal, compared to the violence that rages within the school: it is less than 5 % of the facts.
No one has also questioned the psychological effects of the installation of such devices, raises Pascal Clerc, professor of geography at the University of Cergy-Pontoise: “During institutional texts and press articles analyzed on these” security “issues, I have hardly found developments on their possible effects. The compressor roller of security has taken precedence over educational reflection, ”he criticizes. Students can feel a form of mistrust coming from the institution. “Knowing how to be monitored modifies behaviors and interactions, in particular by neutralizing the expression of contradictory or minority opinions” also noted the director of the Institute of Territorial Development, in a text published on The Conversation.
“It facilitates the task”
That said, in the field, educational teams can also find virtues for these porticos. This is the case of Nicolas, CPE in a city center in Haute-Savoie, who believes that they have a “deterrent effect”. Porticos were installed in his high school last summer, and since then he has seen the intrusions of external students reduce himself. “We had an average of five intrusions per year. Since we have these gantries, we have had none, ”he notes. “We don’t have many education assistants (understanding supervisors). And when you bring 2,000 students in a quarter of an hour, it’s complicated to filter them. We have eight gantries, four on each side. At first, it made monstrous tails, but now the students have adapted, some come earlier, “he notes, rather satisfied. However, he recognizes that there is “no inviolable system”.
The unions themselves seem to have informed their positions, while many were rather reluctant at the start. This is the case of the SNPDEN: “At the start (eight years ago), when the first turnstile portals arrived, we told ourselves that it slowed down the entries. But in reality, it’s okay, explains Olivier Beaufrère. If the gantries are well sized, it is not uninteresting to set up systems that can reassure. We are not opposed to elements that provide an additional guarantee. That said, we mainly need human resources, it is the essential. »»
