“If everyone had done their jobs to protect Lindsay, she would have been alive”: The family of a French teenager who took her own life aged 13 after being the victim of bullying at school announced on Thursday announced that she had filed a complaint against Facebook in particular.
• Also read: 4 youths charged after teenage suicide in northern France
After pointing out this unfinished “work”, family lawyer Me Pierre Debuisson read out a letter the young girl had written a few months before her suicide in northern France in mid-May.
“If you are reading this letter, it is because I certainly left (…) I could no longer bear the morning and evening insults, the mockery, the threats (…) Despite everything that happened, they will I always wish harm,” the young girl had written there.
“If we had been helped and supported, my daughter would be safe with us,” her mother, Betty, said during that press conference.
“I tried everything, I did everything, we were not helped, we were fired, completely, no support, neither before nor during nor after,” she complained.
The judicial investigation into Lindsay’s death resulted in indictments against four minors for “harassment at school that led to suicide” and against an adult for “making death threats.”
The social network is “completely flawed” in allowing the spread of “hate words” even after the death of this student, who was educated in Vendin-le-Vieil in northern France, explained Me Pierre Debuisson.
“Lindsay’s death was not enough because after Lindsay’s death, insults (…) continued to circulate and continue to circulate on social networks,” said the lawyer, referring to publications on Instagram, owned by Facebook, that spoke out about the teenage girl’s suicide rejoiced .
According to the lawyer, the American group is guilty of a “total breach” of the obligation imposed on it to moderate and control the content published on its platforms.
Lindsay’s family also announced Thursday that they have filed a complaint against investigators and education authorities over their alleged failure on the case.
The rectorate of the Lille Academy, contacted by AFP, declined to comment.
Last week he announced the opening of an administrative inquiry and acknowledged that school authorities could have taken “further steps” in tracking down the young girl.
“All my thoughts are with Lindsay and her loved ones as the despicable attacks on social media continue,” National Education Minister Pap Ndiaye tweeted on Wednesday.
All my thoughts go out to Lindsay and her loved ones as the despicable attacks on social media continue. In addition to the criminal proceedings that have already been initiated, I have commissioned the General Inspectorate to carry out an administrative investigation. Harassment has no place in school.
— Pap Ndiaye (@PapNdiaye) May 31, 2023
“The family needs answers, we have to give them,” said government spokesman Olivier Véran on a trip through northern France on Thursday. He emphasized the “parental responsibility” in the fight against bullying.
In France, since 2019, a school bullying prevention system, the pHARe programme, has been tested in primary and secondary schools at six academies. It should be generalized this year.