For Liberty

Improvised tribute at the school gates in Conflans Saint-Honorine, this Saturday.BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

The beheading of a teacher in France by an Islamist terrorist is not only a horrifying attack on a human life, but an attack on secularism, freedom of expression, thought and the institution of education, pillars of republican values ​​that the neighboring country can proudly fly in a democratic Europe.

Islamist terrorism has been virulently challenging those values ​​and coexistence in France in recent years.

The indiscriminate attacks against members of

magazine

against tourists and walkers who congregated to see some fireworks in Nice or against customers of the Bataclan nightclub and other venues, to mention the most emblematic, have been a frontal attack against tolerance and the way of life in France.

In recent weeks, the start of the trial against the suspects in the attack on the magazine for publishing cartoons of Muhammad was the context chosen for a new attack on freedom of expression.

Not only has it suffered the loss of its main creators and an irreplaceable human team, but it has kept its courage intact to the point of republishing the cartoons on the eve of that trial.

The power of satire as an instrument of intelligence and freedom from intolerance has found an extraordinary heroism in the magazine.

The case of the savagely beheaded professor on Friday after giving a class to his students on freedom of expression and exposing the case of the Muhammad cartoons now unfortunately joins this battlefield for republican values ​​that should never have been. bloody, but peaceful and that only had to be freed in the field of arguments.

President Macron has defended those Republican values, including the school.

It is vital that, in the face of hate speech tempted by terrorism, democratic France and Europe maintain exemplary calm, fortitude and courage in the face of barbarism.

Only from there can freedom be defended.