A highly symbolic choice.
Five days after the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) attack which claimed the life of Samuel Paty, Emmanuel Macron will pay tribute to the teacher at the Sorbonne at the end of the day on Wednesday.
According to our information, the ceremony in memory of the decapitated history and geography professor will be "short, solemn and tinged with republican simplicity", according to an Elyos source.
It should take place around 7 p.m. in the presence of the Head of State.
His wife Brigitte, on the other hand, will not be able to attend the ceremony because she is in contact with Covid-19 and must isolate herself for several days.
A "symbol of knowledge"
The decision to organize this event in the famous French university "was very quickly imposed as obvious, because it is a place where for 800 years the freedom of conscience and thought flourishes in France", explains a relative. Of the president.
"It is also the symbol of knowledge and the transmission of knowledge", supports a ministerial adviser.
On the occasion of this tribute, organized in the main courtyard of the Sorbonne, facing the statues of Louis Pasteur and Victor Hugo, the President of the Republic will deliver a speech on freedom of conscience as freedom of progress.
Echoing the death of Samuel Paty, assassinated for showing caricatures of Muhammad to his students as part of a course on freedom of expression.
Friday during his short speech in Conflans-sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), Emmanuel Macron had already paid tribute to the teacher, assassinated "because he taught, because he advocated freedom of expression to students, freedom to believe and not to believe ”.
This Monday morning, he also received at the Elysee Palace, for more than an hour, the family of the deceased professor to again testify to him of "the support of the whole nation in this terrible ordeal", specifies the entourage of the president. , who chose the place of the tribute "in agreement with the family of the deceased".
