The trial that opened this Monday in the Paris juvenile court once again confronts France in the face of one of the jihadist attacks that have shocked the country the most in recent years. Six former students of a school on the outskirts of the capital sit in the dock accused of complicity in the brutal murder of Samuel Paty, the geography and history teacher beheaded in October 2020 by a radicalized young Chechen.
The hearing is being held behind closed doors and the verdict is due to be announced on December 8. The maximum penalty can only be two and a half years in prison, given that the accused were between 13 and 15 years old at the time of the events. More than because of the conviction itself, the trial is interesting because it will allow us to understand the infernal sequence that led to Paty’s death, as well as the enormous toxicity of social networks in a case like this.
The murderer, who was 18 years old and was shot dead by the police after his action, used the help of several kids to identify the teacher as he left school. He gave them money for their collaboration. The young Chechen wanted to kill Paty for showing a caricature of Muhammad in class to explain what freedom of expression means. The alleged accomplices did not know that the objective was to murder the teacher. The murderer told them that he simply wanted to film him, force him to apologize and, at most, hit him.
Paty’s death was the tragic corollary of relentless harassment of the professor and his denunciation on social networks, even fueled from a mosque. A student – ??also tried – spread the hoax that the teacher, when he taught the cartoon, made the Muslim students leave class early. The girl, who was absent that day, told her father. The campaign against Paty gained more strength. There was an obvious risk that someone would want to avenge the honor of the Muslims and that was the case. Next year, eight adults will be tried for their involvement in the same case, including the father of the girl who lied.
The teaching community has still not recovered from the blow of Paty’s death in such an atrocious way. It is more difficult than ever to teach certain things to multicultural students. Last month, another teacher, this time in Arras, in the north of France, was stabbed to death by an Islamist former student of also Caucasian origin, imbued by the atmosphere of rage and hatred created since October 7 after the Hamas terrorist attacks. against Israel and the relentless response of the Hebrew army on Gaza.
