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French schools pay tribute to murdered teacher Samuel Paty

France on Monday honoured the teacher beheaded near his school by a suspected Islamist radical as millions of students returned to class after a spate of attacks that have put the country on edge.

Published: 2 November 2020 15:36 CET

French schools pay tribute to murdered teacher Samuel Paty

Schools held a minute's silence in memory of the slain teacher. Photo: AFP

Schoolchildren across France observed a minute of silence at 11am to remember Samuel Paty, who was killed in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris, on October 16th.

Paty had shown his class cartoons of the prophet Mohammed for a lesson on freedom of expression, sparking an online campaign against him.

His killing heightened tensions as President Emmanuel Macron spearheads a campaign against Islamist radicalism.

Last Thursday, three people were killed by a knife-wielding man at a church in the southern city of Nice in the latest attack to be labelled an act of “Islamist” terror by the government.

Schoolchildren – wearing masks because of the coronavirus pandemic – stood behind their desks or in schoolyards for the minute of silence.

The gesture was matched at schools in Germany and Greece in a show of solidarity.

“I know your emotion after the terrorist attacks, including one in front of a school against a teacher,” Macron said in a message to pupils on his Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook social media channels.

“Today, in class, you will pay homage to Samuel Paty. We will all think of him, you and your teachers,” he said, adding: “The plan of terrorism is to manufacture hatred.”

Classes in France resumed after the holidays with the country on maximum terror alert and armed gendarmes stationed outside some schools.

Teachers had previously held their own tribute to their murdered colleague. Photo: AFP

“I hope that they (the pupils) will have understood the essential idea that in France there is freedom of expression and when you are not happy with an opinion, you go to a judge. You never take justice into your own hands,” teacher Paul Airiau told AFP at the Grange aux Belles college in Paris.

Prime Minister Jean Castex travelled to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine to pay his respects to Paty, saying he had “taught every child of the Republic to be a free citizen.”

“For him, for our country, we will continue. It is our honour and our duty,” Castex tweeted.

Macron has vowed to defend the right to freedom of speech after the furore created in many Muslim countries by the republication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in September by satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

It did so to mark the start of the trial of suspected accomplices in the 2015 massacre of its staff by Islamist gunmen.

The trial has been postponed for at least a week after three defendants tested positive for coronavirus.

Following angry protests in the Muslim world over his defence of the right to publish cartoons, Macron told Al-Jazeera television over the weekend that he understood the caricatures could be shocking for some.

In the latest protest against France, at least 50,000 gathered in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Monday for a rally which started at its biggest mosque but was prevented from approaching the French embassy, police said.

Prosecutors say Paty was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen man, Abdullakh Anzorov, who was spurred to act by a social media campaign started by one parent at the school who was angry that children were shown the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Anzorov was killed by police.

Last week's stabbing rampage in Nice is suspected to have been carried out by Brahim Issaoui, a 21-year-old who arrived illegally in Europe from Tunisia in September.

He remains in a serious condition in hospital after being shot by police, but his life is no longer in danger, said a source close to the investigation.

Police initially detained six people suspected of links with Anzorov.

Two are still being held, including a fellow Tunisian aboard the boat that brought Issaoui to the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20, added the source who asked not to be named.

France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he would travel to Tunisia and Algeria this week to discuss the fight against terror, and would also soon visit Russia.

Adding to tensions, a Greek Orthodox priest is in a serious condition after being shot by an unknown assailant armed with a sawn-off shotgun in Lyon on Saturday.

However an individual arrested over the shooting was released on Sunday and the authorities have not handed the case to anti-terror prosecutors.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.