On the eve of the anniversary date of the assassination of Samuel Paty, all schools in France will pay tribute in different forms Friday, October 15 to the history-geography teacher, killed for showing caricatures of Muhammad in class.
A minute of silence, class debates, screening of documentaries on secularism ... It is up to the teaching teams to decide on the content of this tribute.
“The establishments have the freedom to organize.
This could take the form of exchange, discussion.
This is an opportunity to talk about the place of the teacher, of knowledge, ”
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer explained Thursday.
Read alsoAssassination of Samuel Paty: an "isolated" killer under "influences"
The commemoration of the assassination of Samuel Paty, a year ago,
“is an opportunity for a time of reflection and discussion with the students. This time may in particular take the form, from cycle 3
[CM1, CM2, 6th]
of a specific sequence on the construction of critical thinking, as well as on the profession of professor, its role and its legitimacy ”
, according to the Eduscol site, which provides educational content for teachers. The content of this hour of class will also depend on
“the age of the students. For fairly young students, it will be more like things like:
"What is the teacher's place for you?" (...)
The older the student, the easier it is to talk about critical thinking ”
, specifies the ministry,stressing that
"In general, it is from the first grade that one can make this kind of tribute"
.
Disruptors "will be sanctioned"
On the other hand, Jean-Michel Blanquer has already warned: if these tributes were to be
"disturbed"
, the students concerned will be
"sanctioned"
, he insisted at the microphone of RMC on Thursday. The minister recalled that such sanctions must also have been applied last year, shortly after the assassination.
“There have been problems, but at least they're being reported. They are also circumscribed. When you think of the tens of thousands of places where this has been done, this is obviously a very low percentage. But where it is done, it is signaled and sanctioned, ”
he added. Already on Wednesday, the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin had called on the prefects to be
“totally vigilant”
during this tribute, and more particularly
“In and around schools”
.
The great mosque of Paris told AFP that its rector and imams will gather on Friday morning in front of the college of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) where Samuel Paty taught.
On the teachers' side, Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first secondary school union (middle and high schools), explains that
"
we
feel a lot of emotion that goes back to the teachers on the eve of this tribute, in the face of memories and to the shock that it represented ”
.
“There is a desire on the part of teachers to want to pay him a dignified tribute
,” she said.
To read also Jean-Michel Blanquer: "There is a before and an after Samuel Paty"
Saturday,
“in the very entrance of the ministry, a plaque that will forever pay homage to Samuel Paty will be inaugurated. The Prime Minister will come, along with other members of the government, with the parents and family of Samuel Paty, ”
said Jean-Michel Blanquer. The family will then be received in the afternoon at the Élysée by Emmanuel Macron. At the same time, a Samuel-Paty square will also be inaugurated on Saturday opposite the Sorbonne, during a ceremony that the mayor of Paris wants simple and collected.
On October 16, 2020, history and geography professor Samuel Paty, 47, was stabbed and beheaded near his college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine by Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin, killed shortly after by the police.
The young man of 18, radicalized, reproached him for having shown in class caricatures of Muhammad.
He had learned of the controversy surrounding the cartoons with a video on the Internet of Brahim Chnina, father of a schoolgirl.
The teenager, targeted by exclusion for indiscipline, had lied to her father: she had assured to have been sanctioned for having protested against Samuel Paty's request made to Muslim students, according to her, to report themselves during this course.