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French teenager's 'political' exam answer fails to impress markers

Student at lycée in north-western France shunned set questions and wrote about the plight of homosexuals detained and tortured in Chechnya.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

A French teenager who used a history exam to send a political message has not been rewarded by the examiners, reports the BBC.

Faustin, a student at a lycée in Laval, north-western France, decided to shun questions on post-war German politics and China's international relations.

Instead, Faustin penned a screed about the plight of homosexuals detained and tortured by authorities in Chechnya.

But on Wednesday the baccalaureate student received the results: two out of 20 points.

The teenager, who identifies as gender-neutral, will have to take a re-sit.

"I am absolutely not surprised," Faustin told followers on Twitter.

"I expected it - the important thing was... to talk about what's going on over there."

LGBT activists revealed that more than 100 men were being held in a camp in Chechnya in April - and that some had died after being tortured - because they were gay or suspected of being gay.

Read more of this report from the BBC.