A teacher who was secretly filmed hitting a three-year-old girl has been arrested by police after a second parent filed a complaint.
The unidentified female teacher sparked outrage after she was seen in terrifying footage standing over a screaming baby and then hitting her on the back, causing her to fall to the floor on the first day of school at a Paris daycare centre.
It was alleged she sprayed a liquid in the child’s face, leaving her “extremely traumatised”, according to lawyer Vanessa Edberg, representing the parents.
French police said today that the teacher was summoned and taken into custody after another parent spoke out, claiming she also “severely” beat her baby son in 2012, police said in a complaint Friday.
The alleged attack took place last Tuesday, on the first day of the school year at the Frères-Voisins school in Paris
It is also alleged that the teacher took a small bottle and ‘squirted an unknown product on her face’
Djankinba Bangoura told BFMTV that her son, now 16, was beaten by the same teacher in 2012
Video footage filmed last Tuesday showed the teacher attacking a young schoolgirl as she sat crying in class.
The images caused a national outrage and the teacher was promptly suspended for four months and ‘replace‘.
Djankinba Bangoura, mother of three boys who attend the same school, filed a second complaint against the teacher after the video went viral.
She appeared on the French news channel BFMTV and told how her now 16-year-old son received a ‘bad smack’ from the teacher when he started nursery school in 2012.
He must have been about four years old at the time.
“When he went to kindergarten, he was happy because he was very alert,” she said.
‘But after six months, after the school holidays, I asked him if he liked going back to school.
‘He said, “Yes, I can meet my friends, but not the teacher.”‘
She said her son had shown her how he had been given a “hard slap” by his teacher.
Ms Bangoura said she confronted the teacher and spoke to the principal, but the school stood behind the teacher at the time, she told BFMTV.
She said the child “may have seen it in a book” and “made it up.”
Ms Bangoura claimed that she had reported the incident to the principal and that an investigation had been launched.
The teacher said he was “very surprised” and “denied” the allegations at the time.
Her lawyer now claims that there was ‘no criminal complaint’ and that the report ‘did not yield any results’.
“There was also no internal administrative investigation,” he acknowledged.
Ms Bangoura said she was “affected” when the same teacher was filmed attacking a three-year-old girl in her classroom in early September.
“It was my oldest son, the one who was hit, who showed me the video that night,” she said, adding that he still thinks back to the moment he was allegedly attacked.
The teacher was seen abusing a three-year-old girl on the first day of school at the Frères-Voisins school in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
Ms Edberg, who posted the film on X, said on Tuesday: ‘It wasn’t a beating. It was a slap on her back. What happened is extremely serious.’
She said the incident was secretly recorded by the mother of another child, who was in the classroom all day.
The girl’s father told Le Parisien: ‘My daughter had been beaten before, that’s why she was in crisis and the mother who was there decided to film discreetly.’
After being hit, the little girl was sent to the corner and kept screaming, “Mama!”
After allegedly spraying the liquid, the teacher can be heard saying, “So, does that feel good there?”
An unidentified female teacher can be seen standing over the screaming and crying baby, before hitting her on the back, causing her to fall to the ground.
The school (pictured) is located in the 15th arrondissement of Paris
The teacher also says to the girl, ‘You’ll see, your father will come back when I tell him.’
The parents were initially unaware of the video’s existence, but the woman who took the video gave it to them after two days.
“We immediately filed a complaint,” said the father, who said his son was also “pushed by this teacher” two years ago when he was still in school.
According to BFMTV, the accused teacher says she “deeply regrets” her actions.
She is expected to be questioned about her behavior soon.