Trial begins over beheading of teacher Samuel Paty – DW – 11/04/2024

Four years ago, the murder of French history teacher Samuel Paty sent shockwaves throughout France and beyond.

Late on the Friday afternoon of October 16, 2020, an 18-year-old Chechen stabbed and beheaded 47-year-old Paty in front of his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a northwestern suburb of Paris. The 18-year-old was killed by police shortly after the attack.

During a lesson on freedom of expression, Paty had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class. Those cartoons were published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and resulted in the terrorist attacks on the publication’s offices in January 2015, which killed twelve people. The two attackers had claimed to ‘avenge the prophet’ – just like Paty’s killer.

Last year, a Paris court handed prison sentences of up to two years to six teenagers in connection with the Paty attack. Four of them received suspended sentences.

Now eight adults are on trial, accused of complicity in the murder.

Two men could receive a life sentence, which in France amounts to 30 years behind bars. They are suspected of being accomplices to the murderer, helping him buy weapons or driving him to the murder scene.

Five other men and a woman are accused of being members of a terrorist group and also face up to 30 years in prison. They are suspected of encouraging the attacker, praising his crime or making plans to leave for Syria to join the so-called Islamic State group.

The second group includes the then 13-year-old girl’s father, who allegedly untruthfully told her father that Paty had asked her and other Muslim students to leave the classroom before the controversial cartoons were shown. However, she had not attended the class and was reportedly only looking for an excuse because she had been temporarily excluded from school for an unrelated reason.

But her father was furious and started an online hate campaign that drew the attacker’s attention to Paty.

Lawyer says trial is ‘symbolic’

Lawyer Antoine Casubolo Ferro regards the adult trial as the ‘real Paty trial’ and hopes for severe penalties.

He represents 12 colleagues of Paty, a receptionist at the school, plus the French Association for the Victims of Terror Attacks, AFVT, who are civil plaintiffs in the case.

“The whole of France needs this trial because it brings back the memory of an attack on something symbolic,” Casubolo Ferro told DW. “(The attacker) attacked one of our history teachers, who stood for our education system, our values, our secularism.”

According to the French definition of secularism – the separation of church and state – religious symbols are prohibited at school. This concept, defined in France as “laïcité”, is closely linked to freedom of expression. Blasphemy has not been punishable in France since 1881.

But Vincent Brengarth is not convinced that symbolic sentences are effective. The lawyer represents a man known to the French secret services as an Islamist activist. Together with the young girl’s father, the man filmed a video in front of Paty’s school and separately released another video claiming that Paty had insulted the Prophet Mohammed.

“Our courts must judge this case based on our laws and not become thought police,” Brengarth told DW. “The record shows that the attacker never saw my client’s video – he had already chosen his target when it was published.”

Brengarth added that France must be careful not to set a dangerous precedent.

“During this trial, for the first time, someone could be convicted for being part of a terrorist group, just because he has different values,” said Brengarth.

Time to take stock of the rules of secularism

Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor, Paul-Valery professor of media, politics and religion at the University of Montpellier, thinks the trial could be an opportunity to take stock of France’s legislative anti-terrorist arsenal.

“There have been numerous new anti-terror laws since the early 2000s, with one on secularism coming into force in 2021,” she said. ‘For example, this has created the role of advisers on secularism and imposed stricter rules on who funds religious groups.

“But the French are hardly aware of how their government takes terror risks into account. Polls show that religious terrorism remains one of their top concerns,” she added. “This is also because most attacks are no longer carried out by groups, but by lone wolves, which are more difficult to detect in advance.”

The law on secularism that came into effect in 2021 also includes a ‘Paty paragraph’: ‘Threatening teachers is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($48,000). The government has also promised to better protect teachers and offer specific training modules on secularism.

Nevertheless, the French media regularly report on students who violate the principles of secularism. And in October last year, an Islamist terrorist murdered French language teacher Dominique Bernard in the northern city of Arras.

Bataclan survivor hopes the lawsuit will have a positive effect

Christophe Naudin, a history teacher at a secondary school in the Parisian suburb of Arcueil, feels abandoned by the government.

“We have had a half-day training on secularism since the attack, that’s all – meanwhile the government has just announced another 4,000 job cuts in the school system,” he said.

“Commemorations of Samuel Paty have an element of hypocrisy – they remind us that we are potential targets,” he said.

Naudin identifies strongly with Paty, not just as a history teacher. He is a survivor of the terrorist attack at the Bataclan music hall in November 2015, in which three terrorists killed ninety people. The attack was part of a series of attacks, including on bars and a football stadium, that killed around 130 people.

He hopes the lawsuit will have an effect on how certain people think and act.

For example, he believes that the media should comprehensively report on the trial and highlight the lies, the role played by social media and some parents, but also on the authorities who failed to heed the warnings before “we reached this point ‘. he said.

A ruling is expected on December 20.

Edited by: Rob Mudge