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

Four years ago, the murder of French history teacher Samuel Paty sent shock waves in France and abroad.

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

Paty is in the class during the freedom of expression class. He showed caricatures of Muhammad. Those cartoons were published in the satire magazine. Charlie Hebdo 12 people lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the publishing house in January 2015. Both attackers claimed that they were taking “vengeance of the prophet”, just like Paty’s assassin.

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

Eight adults are now on trial, accused of complicity in murder.

The two men face life imprisonment; This means 30 years behind bars in France. The suspects are suspected of being the assassin’s accomplices, helping him buy weapons or driving him to the scene of the murder.

Five other men and one woman are also charged with membership in a terrorist organization and could face up to 30 years in prison. The suspects are suspected of encouraging the attacker, praising his crime or making plans to travel to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State terrorist group.

The second group includes the father of the 13-year-old girl, who allegedly falsely told her father that Paty had asked him and other Muslim students to leave the classroom before showing her the controversial cartoons. However, he did not attend the class and was reportedly just looking for an excuse as he was temporarily suspended from school for an unrelated reason.

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

Lawyer says case is ‘symbolic’

Lawyer Antoine Casubolo Ferro thinks the adult case is the “real Paty case” and hopes for harsh sentences.

He represents 12 colleagues of Paty, a receptionist at the school, and the French Association of Victims of Terrorist Attacks (AFVT), a civil plaintiff in the case.

“All of France needs this trial, because it triggers the memory of the attack on something symbolic,” Casubolo Ferro told DW. “(The attacker) attacked our history teachers who defend our education system, values ​​and secularism.”

According to France’s definition of secularism (separation of church and state), religious symbols are banned in school. This concept, defined as “laïcité” in France, is closely linked to freedom of expression. Swearing has not been considered a crime in France since 1881.

However, Vincent Brengarth does not believe that symbolic sentences are effective. The lawyer represents a man known to French secret services as an Islamist activist. The man shot a video in front of Paty’s school with the young girl’s father and also showed Paty’s prayers to the Prophet Muhammad. He published another video in which he claimed that he insulted Muhammad.

“Our courts must try this case according to our laws and not become the thought police,” Brengarth told DW. “The case file shows that the attacker never saw my client’s video; he had already chosen his target when it was released.”

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

“This is the first time in this case that a person can be found guilty of being part of a terrorist organization simply because they have different values,” Brengarth said.

It’s time to ‘evaluate’ the rules of secularism

Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor, professor of media, politics and religion at the University of Montpellier Paul-Valery, thinks the case could be an opportunity to “evaluate” France’s anti-terrorism legislative arsenal.

“Since the early 2000s, many new anti-terrorism laws have been enacted, and a law on secularism came into force in 2021,” he said. “This has created the role of advisors on secularism, for example, and introduced stricter rules on who funds religious groups.

“But the French are less aware of how their government takes terrorism risks into account. Polls show religious terrorism is still among their biggest concerns.” “This is because most attacks are no longer carried out by groups, but by lone wolves, which are harder to detect in advance.”

The secularism law, which came into force in 2021, also includes a “Paty paragraph”: Threatening teachers is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($48,000). The government has also promised to better protect teachers and offer special training modules on secularism.

However, French media regularly report on students who violate the principles of secularism. In October last year, an Islamist terrorist killed French teacher Dominique Bernard in the northern town of Arras.

Bataclan survivor hopes trial yields positive outcome

Christophe Naudin, a history teacher at a secondary school in the Paris suburb of Arcueil, feels left behind by the government.

“We’ve had a half-day training on secularism since the attack, that’s all – meanwhile the government has announced another 4,000 jobs will be laid off in the school system,” he said.

“There is an element of hypocrisy in Samuel Paty commemorations; they remind us of the fact that we are potential targets,” he said.

Naudin identifies strongly with Paty, and not just as a history teacher. He is one of the survivors of the November 2015 terrorist attack on the Bataclan music hall, in which three terrorists killed 90 people. The attack was part of a series of attacks on bars and a football stadium in which around 130 people were killed.

He hopes the court case will have an impact on how certain people think and act.

For example, he thinks the media should have reported extensively on the case and highlighted the lies, the role played by social media and some parents, as well as officials who ignored warnings before “it got to this point”. he said.

The decision is expected to be made on December 20.

Edited by: Rob Mudge