When Stéphane Grimbaud thinks back, it must have begun in December 2025. He was sitting with a picture book at his son's bedside, a book about a boy who gets to go to the school cafeteria for the first time. Grimbaud's son Arthur is four years old and loves food. "See," Grimbaud said, "the boy is just like you. He's looking forward to the cafeteria."

When Arthur really likes something, it is immediately obvious. "I love the cafeteria!" he shouted. Then he paused – before saying: "You know, Papa, I don't like the cafeteria anymore." He had probably been served something he hadn’t liked, Grimbaud thought, in his recollection. A year earlier, his son had started "école maternelle," a mix of preschool and kindergarten, which is mandatory in France for three-year-olds. Special mealtime requests of the kind parents could make in the "crèche," or daycare, were no longer accepted. The children are supposed to get used to rules.

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Grimbaud says Arthur told him that someone had been mean to him. That someone had yelled at him, telling him he was an ugly child. Stupid. "He wants to cut my head off. Will he do it, Papa?" the boy asked his father. Children sometimes say cruel things, he told his son, but they usually don't mean them. "He's not a child," Arthur said. "It’s Olivier (name changed). Our caregiver."