The teacher was not who we thought. In September, in the town of Taponas near Mâcon, Samantha Avril returned to school as a teacher in a CP-CE1 class to replace an incumbent. After teaching her students for six days, she was laid off on Friday, September 23, as revealed by Le Progrès.
Behind his suspension actually hides a great deception. Samantha Avril does not have, in fact, any diploma, attesting that she can teach as a school teacher. It was then that the 38-year-old usurper was unmasked by a colleague and the parents of students for her repeated absences. “Thanks to articles that appeared in a newspaper in Saône-et-Loire, there are people who made the connection because they found his behavior a little abnormal,” testified a parent to the JT of TF1.
A few days before, Samantha Avril had been rejected from the University of Burgundy after having tried to apply with false diplomas. She would have tried to get a job with the National Institute of Teaching and Education. However, the 30-year-old was hired by the Lyon Academy as a contract worker. According to the regional daily, the academy indicated “to have launched the dismissal procedure the same day” when the trickery was discovered.
If the Lyon Academy and the University of Burgundy have announced that they are filing a complaint, the story of this usurper has marked the parents of students in the town. Especially since the forger is not his first attempt at fraud.
Recognized by some parents of students, Samantha Avril made the headlines in another case in 2020. Before being a fake teacher, the 30-year-old was a fake doctor. With a falsified diploma that she bought online, the usurper officiated for four months in a health center located in Montceau-les-Mines.
At the time, the young woman had been unmasked by the Council of the Order of Saône-et-Loire. Subsequently, she was indicted for “illegal practice of medicine, endangering the lives of others, involuntary injuries, forgery and use of forgery” and for “fraud”. From this terrible scam, two patients died after consulting the false practitioner. Placed in pre-trial detention for four months (September 2020 to January 2021), Samantha Avril returned to bars in October 2021 after violating her judicial control. She is released at the end of 2021.
Before these two similar cases, Samantha Avril tried to register as a nurse with the Order of Nurses, as indicated by Le Parisien, relaying AFP. The usurper was also prosecuted because of her fake diploma. In 2021, she was also a supervisor in an agricultural high school, according to Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire. But, what makes a mythomaniac lie by leading a double life?
For his lawyer, Me Laurence Grenier-Guignard, his client is facing psychological distress and cannot explain her actions. “She feels the irrepressible need to present diplomas to work. She does not explain it, but for her, only a diploma can allow her to have a job. She does not imagine that presenting a simple CV can allow her to work”, she explains to the site of France 3 Bourgogne.
Described by the magistrate as “sad and depressed”, Samantha Avril is “someone who is really not good about herself. She does not have a lot of self-esteem”. According to her lawyer to our colleagues, the defendant would be “worried” about potential incarceration.