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French teacher suspended over 'suicide' essay

A teacher is accused of asking her students at a school in west France to write an essay in which they imagined themselves as a suicidal teenager.

La rédaction de Mediapart

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A FRENCH teacher who has been accused of asking her students to write an essay in which they imagined themselves as a suicidal teenager has been suspended pending an investigation, reports The Australian.

The teacher, who works at the Montmoreau-Saint-Cybard secondary school in the Charente region of western France, will discover next week if she is to face disciplinary action following an outcry among parents over a composition she reportedly set for her class of 13 and 14-year-olds.

According to local newspaper La Charente Libre, the teacher reportedly asked the pupils to imagine themselves as an 18-year-old who had taken an irrevocable decision to end his or her life.

"You decided at the last minute to explain your reasons," she was quoted as instructing them. "Drawing a self-portrait, you will describe your self-disgust. Your text will go over the events in your life that created this feeling."

Read more of this report from The Australian.