Another school was targeted by arson in Wallonia – the sixth in the Charleroi area to be hit by fire since Tuesday night. No link has yet been established with the contentious EVRAS sexual education policy, but connections have been made with previous attacks.
The École des Cités in Montignies-sur-Sambre (Hainaut) was the victim of a fire on Thursday night at around 23:00, Charleroi police zone confirmed to Belga News Agency on Friday morning. This follows several similar incidents earlier this week – four primary schools in the Charleroi area were set on fire on Tuesday night and a fifth was started at the Alliance school in Monceau-sur-Sambre.
While the schools on Tuesday were tagged with anti-EVRAS slogans, (acronym for Éducation à la Vie Relationnelle, Affective et Sexuelles), no connection has been made with the last two incidents nor is it clear whether the perpetrators are linked, the Charleroi police spokesperson stated on Thursday night.
'Barbaric acts of terror'
At least for the first four fires, it is suspected that the incidents are connected to rising anger among parents against the decision by Belgium's French-speaking Community (FWB) to make sexual and relationship education mandatory for a total of four hours during a pupil's school career.
In an effort to harmonise teaching levels across its schools, the FWB recently updated its policy on sexual education so that all pupils in certain age groups will receive two hours of instruction from trained specialists during the academic year.
Until now, schools under Belgium's French-speaking administration have been allowed to decide individually whether to carry out sexual education classes – unlike in Dutch-speaking schools where it is already mandatory. The change means that pupils will have two hours in 6th grade (ages 11-12) and another two in 4th grade (15-16). These will be taught by specially trained educators.
But the policy has come under fierce opposition from religious groups as well as conservative families, with opponents arguing that it will introduce concepts of gender and sexual identity to children too early. At the scene of some of the fires, graffiti tags read "No EVRAS."
Several hundred people demonstrated against Evras in Brussels. Credit: Belga/ Eric Lalmand
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said the violent actions against the new policy are totally unacceptable. "A school should be a safe place for all children. We will do everything possible to identify the perpetrators and prosecute them. The right to sex education cannot be questioned."
Meanwhile, Home Affairs Minister Verlinden has asked the federal police to support local police areas. "Don't touch our schools," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. She referred to arson attacks in Brussels and Wallonia must stop. The Brussels Fire Brigade noted that on 5 September, papers were set alight in the toilets of a school in Saint-Gilles but no link to EVRAS confirmed. Two days later, a smell of burning was reported in a Schaerbeek school but no fire was found.
Verlinden has asked the federal police to support local areas to avoid escalation while a coordination meeting will take place on Friday including the country's intelligence agencies, the federal police and relevant local governments to "fine-tune the further approach."
Not teaching about masturbation
The wildest conspiracy theories are circulating about the French-speaking community's new programme on sex education.
Caroline Désir (PS), minister of education for the French-speaking Community, strongly opposes the scaremongering fake reports and contested the most ridiculous on La Première radio. She clarified that teachers will not force orientation or gender on children, "nor are we going to teach them sexual acts or masturbation."
She added that this has been made explicitly clear on numerous occasions and also stressed that parents "should not be blind to what their children see through their smartphones, whether unwittingly or not."
For Désir, this is precisely why sex education classes are important: "Children are sometimes confronted early on with things they don't understand and which can even be dangerous. We want to protect them from that,but also to provide answers to questions they ask themselves as early as adolescence."
Related News
- Belgium makes psychological help for pupils at school free
- Controversial sex education policy thought to be behind school arson attacks
- From protest to 'terrorism': Sexual education policy sparks controversy and arson
There are once again calls to protest against this new policy in the Belgian capital on Sunday. A demonstration took place last week as well, with both conspiracy theorists and Muslim women taking part. Signs with inscriptions such as "Shame on you", "Education, not sexuality" and "Stay away from our children" were displayed.
Now Sunday's demonstration was requested by a Brussels-based Muslim woman with 14,000 followers on YouTube. She suggests her followers to take their children out of school.
