In Toulouse, students refused to listen to the Beatles during Ramadan
The case had electrified the media sphere and irrigated the plot of TV talk shows. The information was revealed by The Dispatch in its edition of May 17. A handful of students had refused to attend a music lesson at Les chalets college, a school in downtown Toulouse, on the pretext of respecting religious precepts.
The facts date back to April 4, three days after the start of Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims. The teacher plays a piece of the Beatles in order to study the structure of this song composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A student stands up and refuses to stay in class any longer. He explains to the music education teacher that during this holy period he is forbidden to listen to music. Seven other students who are not obligatory of Muslim faith follow suit. The teacher lets it go but warns the principal of the college. The latter and the head teacher of the class summon these students for a reframing and recall the rule of secularism prevailing at school.
Principles of secularism flouted
The incident is reported to the rectorate. Since the attacks that bloodied Montauban and Toulouse in 2012, particularly in a Jewish school in the Pink City, the academy has been careful to provide a response each time students deviate from the principles of secularism. Few teachers from this Toulouse college had agreed to discuss this incident. Most were afraid of throwing opprobrium on this establishment, a veritable laboratory of social diversity where children from the well-to-do classes rub shoulders with young people from the working-class neighborhoods of Toulouse.
During the same period, another incident of the same nature had shaken this college. A group of girls had asked their teacher not to sit next to the boys. The reason given: during Ramadan, menstruating women cannot be in contact with the opposite sex. However, no rule of Islam advocates it.