Cantal school director and teacher Caroline Grandjean committed suicide in September due to harassment resulting from her homosexuality.
The wife of Caroline Grandjean, the teacher who committed suicide in Cantal on the first day of the school year after being subjected to homophobic comments, filed a complaint against National Education for “harassment”, the Aurillac prosecutor announced this Wednesday.
The complaint also targets the mayor of the village of Moussages, where the elementary school where he is also the director is located. The complaint was filed by his widow Christine Paccoud, prosecutor Sandrine Delorme added, without further details.
Caroline Grandjean, 42 years old, was the target of harassment since September 2023 because of her homosexuality and committed suicide on September 1, 2025, a tragedy that caused turmoil in the world of education. The labels “dirty dyke” and “dyke = pedophile” were found on the walls of his school in Moussages, a village in Cantal with 200 inhabitants.
An investigation was opened after this registration but closed without further action in March 2025 “due to the absence of new facts”, prosecutors later stated. While on sick leave, the teacher was offered a position a few miles away from Moussages at the start of the school year but was unable to return to work at that time.
A “perseverance”
“She was never recognized as a victim. Her fight, and my fight now, is for her to be recognized as a victim, for those who destroyed her to recognize that,” Christine Paccoud said in September. From now on, “I want them to know that even though he is no longer here, the people who committed all these crimes will not take anything away from our love,” he added.
He explained that he had found “writings from Caroline (…) that tell all the facts from the beginning, all the reactions from everyone, from city hall, from the National Education Department, her feelings”. “When I read it, I said to myself: how relentless,” he said.
“I lost my wife, but I lost her from the start because she was no longer the same. She no longer had joy in life. She only thought about it, to try to defend herself and raise her head above the water,” continued Christine Paccoud in her final speech.
“We have tried, both psychologists, psychiatrists, friends, me, to overcome it, but we all, each at our level, feel guilty because we didn’t succeed. I’m not sure in the village there is this feeling of guilt. I’m not sure at all,” he added.
