In France, Teachers Went on Strike After a Scandal With Students and Parents Over a Renaissance Painting

French language teachers protested after a Renaissance-era painting, 'Diana and Actaeon' by Italian artist Giuseppe Cesari, outraged Muslim students and their parents due to the depiction of nudity. The teacher, who showed the painting to students during a class, fears returning to work due to the threat of revenge.

This was reported by France24

The incident that sparked the protest occurred in the town of Issoudun, located in central France. After a French language class, the teacher decided to show the 11 and 12-year-old sixth-grade students a 17th-century painting.

The painting depicts a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the hunter Actaeon observes the naked goddess Diana and her nymphs bathing. According to the myth, the goddess punishes the mortal and transforms the hunter into a stag being later killed by his own hounds, unaware of their master's scent.

After the school presentation of the painting featuring five naked women, several Muslim students claimed to be disturbed and shocked. The students also alleged that the teacher made racist and Islamophobic remarks.

Simultaneously, the Versailles Education Authority denies the accusations.

According to Sophie Venetitay, the secretary general of Snes-FSU secondary school teachers' union, after this incident, a parent sent an email complaint to the school director. In the letter, the complainant threatened the director with reprimand and emphasized that his child was restricted from expressing opinions during class.

Following this incident, school teachers protested and refused to work, fearing retaliation on religious grounds. Teachers referred to a 2020 case when an attacker beheaded history teacher Samuel Paty, shouting Islamist slogans. It later emerged that the assailant was a relative of one of Paty's students.

France's Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, visited the school and announced that the involved students would face disciplinary action. Afterward, the school resumed classes, and teachers returned to work.

This October, in the French city of Arras, a man with a knife entered a local high school, killed teacher Dominique Bernard, and injured several others. The attacker, 20-year-old Chechen Mohammed Mogouchkov, a former student of the institution, shouted 'Allahu Akbar' during the attack.