FRANCE: As soon as Karen Montet-Toutain was discharged from hospital this week, she told four journalists about the threats of rape, robbery and murder which she endured for three months, and the knife attack that nearly killed her in a technical school in a banlieue south of Paris.
The applied arts teacher's story was published prominently in yesterday's French newspapers, and has strengthened unease over violence in the immigrant ghettos surrounding French cities.
On December 16th, Ms Montet-Toutain (28) entered her classroom at the lycée Louis-Blériot in Étampes. "Kevani gave me a dark look, the look of a killer," she recounted. The previous evening, she had told the mother of the 18-year-old student that he had been suspended for eight days because of insolent behaviour, and was often late.
"He sat in the front row. I asked the students to take off their jackets. They all did, except him . . . I went to the blackboard. He said: 'Madame, are you the one who met my mother yesterday'?"
Ms Montet-Toutain told the young man that he could have attended the meeting with his mother. He stood up and walked towards her.
"He stabbed me in the navel. At first I didn't see blood, then I saw his knife and I wondered if I was going to die. He turned around and threatened the class. A student tried to intervene and I was afraid for him. I got to my feet and he stabbed me again in the stomach.
"When I was on the ground, he stabbed me five times in the arm. Everyone was screaming. One of my colleagues arrived. When Kevani saw him, he ran away."
Ms Montet-Toutain was taken to hospital in a critical condition, and is on medical leave until March 19th. Kevani turned himself in to police two days later.
Ms Montet-Toutain criticised her principal and school inspectors for ignoring her repeated written complaints. Her troubles started on September 16th, when she dismissed a disorderly class five minutes early. Two students stayed behind and began rifling through her desk. "You're pretty. I want you," one said.
In November another student threatened the teacher sexually. "I want you, right now, on the table." He turned to a friend and said: "Don't worry. I'll give her to you afterwards."
Students told Ms Montet-Toutain that burglaries were an easy way to make money. "We'll find out where you live and [if she tried to stop them robbing her apartment] we'll shoot you in the head. And everybody who's there."
When the arts teacher told a staff meeting that her life had been threatened, the principal said: "That's a good one!"
After the attack on Ms Montet-Toutain, the ministers of education and the interior suggested they might deploy police units in French lycées.
The publication of Ms Montet-Toutain's story followed reports a week earlier that about 30 youths terrorised 600 passengers on the Nice-Lyon train on the morning of January 1st. Groups of five or six young men went through the train insulting passengers, stealing belongings, tearing curtains and slashing seats. A 20 year-old woman was sexually assaulted.
As its response to three weeks of rioting in the banlieues in November, the government yesterday approved a draft law on equal opportunity. The law will establish apprenticeships from the age of 14, and a "parental responsibility contract" whereby welfare payments may be withheld if students do not attend school.
In the attempt to stamp out racial discrimination, the law provides for job applications through anonymous CVs.