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Mourning place for Samuel Paty in front of the French embassy in Berlin
Photo: CLEMENS BILAN / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Following the murder of history teacher Samuel Paty, the French government is planning a national memorial ceremony in the courtyard of the Sorbonne University in Paris.
As the Elysée Palace announced, the location of the event was chosen in agreement with the family of the deceased.
President Emmanuel Macron received Paty's family in person on Monday.
The Sorbonne stands for a historical place of education and is a symbol for the spirit of the Enlightenment.
In addition, the historical university has always been a stage for freedom of expression and exchange.
The wife of the French President, Brigitte Macron, will not attend the funeral service.
The "Première Dame" had contact with a corona infected person last Thursday and is therefore going into quarantine voluntarily.
The 47-year-old history teacher Paty was beheaded on Friday in a suburb northwest of Paris on the street.
The 18-year-old suspect with Russian-Chechen roots was shot dead by the police.
Shortly after the fact, he had bragged about it on the Internet and wrote that the pedagogue had disparaged the prophet Mohammed.
The teacher had shown Mohammed cartoons in class on the subject of freedom of expression.
Thereupon the father of a schoolgirl mobilized massively against him on the net.
Immediately after the crime, Macron spoke of an Islamist act of terrorism.
The death of the educator moves France, which has been shaken by Islamist terrorism for years.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday under the motto "Je suis Samuel" or "Je suis Prof" ("I am a teacher") to stand up for freedom of expression.
More than 250 people have been killed in Islamic terrorist attacks in the country in recent years.
Minute of silence in the European Parliament
The European Parliament observed a minute's silence for Paty.
Teachers now need support, said Parliament President David Sassoli in Brussels.
In France, the attack sparked a broad political debate.
Macron's main competitor, right-wing populist Marine Le Pen, said the "extermination of Islamism on French soil" was a duty.
The Parisian Imam Hassen Chalghoumi called Paty a "martyr for freedom of speech" and warned against Islamist extremism.
He asked all mosques in France to include Paty in their upcoming Friday prayer.
Interior Minister Darmanin said the father, who mobilized against the teacher online, and others "issued a fatwa against the teacher".
There is no other word for it.
In Islam, a fatwa is legal information to clarify a religious or legal problem.
The term made negative headlines worldwide when the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death threat against the British writer Salman Rushdie for blasphemy in 1989.
A defense council chaired by Macron decided on Sunday evening to improve security in the school area.
As Élysée Insider reported, online platforms are also to be monitored more intensively in order to be able to intervene more quickly if calls for violence are made.
Macron had already announced in a speech at the beginning of the month that he would take stronger action against "radical Islamism".
He tries to establish a parallel society with different values in the country.
Macron announced at the time that it would be easier for the authorities to dissolve clubs in the future.
Interior Minister Darmanin says he wants to ban the associations CCIF (Collectif contre l'islamophobie en France) and Baraka City.
CCIF resisted even before the announcement via Twitter that there was a hate campaign against the organization.
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pgo / dpa / Reuters