France to try teacher for burning ‘catastrophic’ exam papers

PARIS: A high school teacher is to face trial this autumn in France after setting fire to his pupils´ English exam papers to protest at the state education system.

Victor Immordino, 29, risks 10 years in jail and a 150,000-euro ($160,000) fine for setting 63 tests alight outside a Paris vocational school on Tuesday, the prosecutor´s office and board of education said on Wednesday.

“It was visual. My aim was to start a public debate,” the teacher told broadcaster BFMTV on Thursday. “I saw the exams. They were catastrophic... They will be given another opportunity to resit them.”

The prosecutor´s office said the teacher had been suspended and banned from approaching the school until his trial on October 27. A video on newspaper Le Parisien´s website shows the teacher throwing the exam papers from mid-April into the flames of a tin dustbin on the pavement outside the school.