A real nightmare took place in Arras on Friday October 13, 2023 late in the morning. Dominique Bernard, a 57-year-old French teacher, was brutally murdered by a former student from the Gambetta-Carnot school complex, in front of the entrance to the establishment. A few hours after the tragedy, after an endless interview by the police, a second grade student, Mathilde, told what she knew about the teacher to journalists from Parisian. “He was my literature teacher in fourth grade”revealed the teenager, who is not ready to forget the teacher. “He was cool, funny, he often made jokes”, she remembered, having difficulty speaking of Dominique Bernard in the past tense. The good reputation of the teacher was unanimous among the students of the establishment. Bartolomé, a fifth grader, explained that the late teacher “was the teacher” that he “dreamed of having”. “Everyone found him nice, interesting, easy with the students. I can’t believe it. It was a cool day… […] and there, a teacher gets killed”said the young student in shock.
Dominique Bernard was the nephew of the journalist Henri Tincq
The assailant hit Dominique Bernard with a knife, in the carotid artery and thorax. Despite the intervention of several fellow professors, he is “died quickly, on the sidewalk”explained a teacher who tried to block the killer. Those who had the strength to testify to our colleagues all described “a brilliant guy”, “a guy engaged with his students”. Jonathan, a high school Spanish teacher, explained to our colleagues that he had met Dominique “in a hallway, an hour before” the drama. He declared having “joked with him”… The Spanish teacher also praised the character of his former work colleague. “He was a scholar, but above all, a man full of humor”he explained to journalists from Parisian. A teacher, who studied with him, made a point of emphasizing that Dominique Bernard was “the nephew of the famous journalist Henri Tincq, who has long been the specialist in religious questions at Le Monde. He was a very brilliant student, extremely well-read. He did his master’s thesis on Julien Gracq. He got the aggregation, but then we lost sight of each other“continued the professor who regrets the death of his colleague.