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If I were Al Qaeda, I'd put a bomb right now," "It's well done for him, he's been looking for it. It's deserved", or "A teacher is dead, a teacher is dead, well done for him!" Remarks made by students on October 16, during the tribute to Dominique Bernard, who had been murdered three days earlier by an Islamist terrorist. The French teacher had tried to prevent the knife-wielding individual from entering the Gambetta secondary school in Arras, where he taught. During the minute's silence, another student said, "I don't care. I'm going to say Allah Akbar." During this time of contemplation, two students simulated the firing of weapons. And a BTS student made direct threats to his teacher during the discussion about the terrorist attack.
"The wave step is over!"
Two days after the tribute, the content of the protests became clearer. On Tuesday, during questions to the government, Education Minister Gabriel Attal said 179 students had disrupted or challenged the time to pay tribute to the murdered teacher. "179 referrals to the public prosecutor are leaving today to prosecute these students, 179 disciplinary proceedings are also leaving," he said. Of these 179 students, 68 had "words and actions of particular gravity," Gabriel Attal's entourage confided on Tuesday evening. For these 68 cases relating to the glorification of terrorism, the Minister sent the heads of schools "a request for immediate exclusion", without waiting for the disciplinary council to be convened. The rue de Grenelle hardened its tone. "At some point, tolerance is okay! Kindness is fine! And the wave step is over! The minister had warned the Assembly.
793 incidents in 2020 for Samuel Paty
In November 2020, during the tribute to Samuel Paty, the Ministry of Education recorded 793 incidents. By the time they arrived, 44 students had been permanently expelled and 131 were temporarily excluded. The history teacher of Conflans Sainte-Honorine was beheaded outside his school by a Russian refugee of Chechen origin, ten days after he had studied, with 4th grade students, two caricatures of Muhammad from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as part of a class on freedom of expression. On 13 October, Dominique Bernard was fatally stabbed by Mohammed Mogouchkov, 20, a former student of the Gambetta-Carnot school complex, as he tried to intervene. He was wrong to be a teacher and to have been in his way. According to a witness at the scene, the assailant was looking for a history teacher.