Unions, students and parents criticize the operation. They denounce a “filing” of high school students, notably during a gathering held on Monday, November 9, in Brest. The judicial requisition allows police officers to obtain, from the school life office, the identity and photograph of nearly 4,500 students spread across three schools in the school complex.
On November 4, two plainclothes police officers presented themselves at the school life offices of three schools in the Kerichen school complex in Brest. Without notifying the principals, they invoked a judicial requisition to obtain the surnames, first names and photos of nearly 4,500 students.
Neither the principals’ letter nor the public criticism specifies the exact purpose of the procedure or what will become of the files that were handed over. Opponents contest both the scale of the collection and the conditions under which it was carried out.
The seizure concerns the student photo directories of several schools in this town in Finistère. It comes in the midst of the high school student movement. Kerichen is described as the epicenter of high school protest in Brittany’s second-largest city.
The case thus places the retention and transmission of school data during a period of high school mobilization at the center of the local debate, while unions, families and local elected officials are demanding guarantees on the use of this information.