A song from U2 resonates.
The family chose "One", whose opening words ask if things are better.
“Is it getting better…” At this moment, the moment when Samuel Paty's coffin enters the courtyard of La Sorbonne, the heart says no.
The eyes mist, the throats are knotted, at the time of paying homage to this professor of 47 years "fallen because he had made the choice to teach", in the words of Emmanuel Macron.
Beheaded on October 16 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), for teaching freedom of expression to his students.
The sweetness of the day is gone, as if the atmosphere is getting in tune.
It is cold when the Republican Guards deposit his remains at the foot of the chapel.
These are now the words of Jean Jaurès "to teachers" that we hear in these places which have trained generations of students.
"You hold the intelligence and soul of children in your hands," reads a friend of Samuel Paty.
Outside the walls, where bookstores, cafes, and cinemas in the Latin Quarter also open minds, applause rises.
It is the salvation of those who have gathered on the Place de la Sorbonne to honor this "face of the Republic", this "quiet hero", as the president calls it.
“They must know what a free democracy is”, Jaurès wrote again.
VIDEO. Tribute to Samuel Paty: Macron hails "a quiet hero"
How not to think about this course, the one that the teacher "had been preparing since July" - Emmanuel Macron, again - in the manner "of these humble people, who question themselves a thousand times".
This course cost him his life.
The political class, which has continued to tear itself apart since Friday evening, unites in the same meditation.
“Evil, I named it.
The actions, we decided them, we hardened them, we will lead them to the end, ”only Macron slips.
Opposition officials have ceased to speak out.
Fragile parenthesis.
"I hope that it will last a little longer than the time of the evening", blows a minister, without believing it.
"We will defend the freedom you taught so well"
To Samuel Paty, who said one day "I would like my life and my death to be used for something", Emmanuel Macron promises: "We will continue, professor.
We will defend the freedom that you taught so well and we will promote secularism, we will not renounce caricatures, drawings, even if others retreat.
"The Head of State said during the Council of Ministers, he wanted to make this tribute" an important moment for the Nation ".
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"Friday night, I first believed in random madness, in absurd arbitrariness," he confides, in his speech, his voice and face white with emotion.
Because no, no arbitrariness, this teacher from the college of Bois-d'Aulne was the victim of a "fatal conspiracy, of amalgamation", of "hatred of the other".
"Making Republicans was Samuel Paty's fight," said the president, who now addresses those who remain: "And if this task today may seem titanic, especially where violence, intimidation, sometimes resignation takes over, it is more essential, more current than ever.
"
"We don't want this to happen again"
Elsa is 17 years old, she is a final year student.
If she came, it was to say, “We don't want this to happen again.
She tells her history teacher.
“She gave us a class on cartoons.
She told us that she felt confident with us because we are in a private school but that she would not have done it elsewhere ”, confides the young girl.
"In every school, in every college, in every high school, we will give back to the teachers the power to make Republicans, the place and the authority which belong to them.
We will train them, we will support them, we will protect them, ”echoes the president, while the teaching staff is stunned and shocked.
In the front line, and sometimes so alone in their class.
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Politicians are the first to leave.
Of the 400 guests, only the students and teachers (including relatives of the teacher and students of the establishment) who came to attend the tribute remain in the courtyard.
In memory of Samuel Paty, they applaud one last time.
A few minutes earlier, we had also read these words, taken from the poem written by Gauvain Sers “To Samuel”: “Luckily, we all had a history teacher.
"On the chapel of La Sorbonne, the republican motto," Liberty, equality, fraternity "emerges in the night.
