France: Teacher steps down after students accuse her of praising Adolf Hitler

A high school teacher in the French city of Limoges has been forced to step down after students accused her of making comments in favour of Adolf Hitler.

Seventeen students from the lycée Renoir signed a document claiming their German teacher had praised the leader of the Third Reich.

They say their teacher said she would have liked that "German tanks could come to (the) Renoir (high school)" to subdue unruly pupils, according to a local newspaper, Le Populaire du Centre.

A source at the Education Ministry, told the newspaper the teacher had had "very poor inspection reports " and during her career had been "moved from institution to institution".

"This time, she has apparently gone too far by speaking of the Third Reich with a touch of nostalgia in her voice," the source said.

Defamation complaint

Two parents' unions reported the claims to the rector.

The teacher, who denies the allegations, was called before the Education Ministry's disciplinary board on Tuesday 21 April.

The accused, who has filed a complaint for false denunciation and defamation, hopes to convince the council that this is an "injustice" of a "cabal " mounted by a group of students.

"We don't get to the end of our careers to say such nonsense," she told the newspaper.

The town of Limoges is 15 miles (24km) from the martyr village of Oradour-sur-Glane, where 642 inhabitants – men, women and children – were massacred by soldiers of a German Waffen-SS Panzer division who also destroyed the entire village on 10 June 1944.