French teachers walked out of a middle school west of Paris on Friday and Monday, following rumors by 11- and 12-year-old students that another teacher had made racist and Islamophobic insults at students when they refused to look at a Renaissance painting of nude women during an art history lesson.

In a meeting with the 6th-grade class following the incident, authorities at the Jacques Cartier school in the town of Issou concluded the students’ accusations of racism had been fabricated, according to a representative of the Versailles Academy school district, speaking to Artnet News. While he said some students had looked away when shown the painting Diana and Actaeon, by Giuseppe Cesari, illustrating a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, their teacher had tried to continue with the course. French media also reported students had specifically complained the teacher deliberately showed them the painting to shock students of the Muslim faith, a point the representative could not confirm.

Three students who spread the false rumors later apologized and are currently the subject of a school disciplinary proceeding. However, the incident, which led to one letter from a parent threatening to file a complaint against the school, sparked a two-day teacher walkout, and France’s education minister visited the school Monday.

France has been on high alert against terror attacks since the Israel-Hamas war, and the murder of a high school teacher in northern France on October 13, in what the government called an Islamist terror attack. That killing took place three years after another French high school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in a terror attack following student rumors which spread online about Paty’s course on free speech, which included depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. Six teenagers were convicted on Friday for their role in Paty’s death.

Teachers walked out over concerns related to those events and their sense of insecurity, according to Catherine Nave-Bekhti, head of the French national education union CFDT (SGEN-CFDT), who spoke to France 3. She said teachers are asking for support and more “protection,” as well as surveillance of online rumors. This last week of events “revives the memory and wound of Samuel Paty’s assassination, with its similar, early phase of misunderstanding, which has provoked legitimate fears and anxiety,” said Nave Bekhti.

After his Monday visit to the school, Education Minister Gabriel Attal promised a firm response from officials, and the importance of respecting “authority” and French secular values. “In French schools, we don’t turn away from looking at a painting. We don’t plug our ears during music class. We don’t wear religious garb…. We neither contest the authority of a teacher, nor the authority of our values,” he said at a press conference.

The spokesman for the Versailles Academy said the district was in the process of supplying additional personnel to help support teachers at the middle school in Issou, which he said had been ill-equipped to face a spike in the size of their student body. He also said the school’s case was unlike what happened before Samuel Paty’s killing because the students had quickly apologized, preventing events from “spiraling.”

More Trending Stories:  

Artists to Watch This Month: 10 Solo Gallery Exhibitions to See In New York Before the End of the Year 

Art Dealers Christina and Emmanuel Di Donna on Their Special Holiday Rituals 

Stefanie Heinze Paints Richly Ambiguous Worlds. Collectors Are Obsessed 

Inspector Schachter Uncovers Allegations Regarding the Latest Art World Scandal—And It’s a Doozy 

Archaeologists Call Foul on the Purported Discovery of a 27,000-Year-Old Pyramid 

The Sprawling Legal Dispute Between Yves Bouvier and Dmitry Rybolovlev Is Finally Over