A teacher has been seen hitting a little girl at a nursery school as she screams uncontrollably and cries out for her ‘mummy’.
The footage has caused outcry across France following the incident that happened at the Frères-Voisins [Brothers-Neighbours] school in Paris.
The female teacher looms over the three-year-old girl before she can be seen hitting her across the back, causing her to crash to the floor and scream loudly.
It is also alleged that the teacher sprayed a liquid in the face of the girl, but it is unknown what this liquid might be.
After the liquid was sprayed in the girl’s face, the teacher can be heard saying: ‘There, does that feel good there?’
She then says: ‘You’ll see, your dad will come back when I tell him.’
The video was secretly filmed by another child’s mother and posted by Vanessa Edberg, a lawyer representing the girl’s parents, on X.
The girl’s parents did not know the video was being filmed until it was handed over to them two days later.
Ms Edberg said: ‘It wasn’t a spanking. She hit her on the back. What happened is extremely serious.’
She said the girl and the rest of her family were ‘extremely traumatised,’ and a complaint had been sent to police and prosecutors.
The girl’s dad said: ‘My daughter had been hit before, that’s why she was having a crisis and the mother who was there decided to film discreetly.
‘We went straight to file a complaint,’ the dad said, who said his son had also been ‘pushed by this teacher’ when he was at the school two years ago.
Today the teacher was on sick leave while waiting to be interviewed by law and order authorities.
A school spokesperson said: ‘The teacher acknowledged the facts and apologised to the family.’
Aggravated assault on a child under 15 is an imprisonable offence in France.
Philippe Goujon, the Mayor of the 15th arrondissement in Paris, said: ‘This happened the day after the start of the school year. The teacher was arrested and immediately replaced.’
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