Last May, three days after his appointment, Pap Ndiaye, had booked his first trip to the college of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the Yvelines, where Samuel Paty taught, killed by a young radicalized. At the time, Pap Ndiaye was already under fire from critics, the right and the extreme right reproaching the new minister for his supposed complacency vis-à-vis the Islamists.
>> Tribute to Samuel Paty: one year after the assassination, update on the investigation
Today, the reviews haven’t really changed. Pap Ndiaye’s cabinet knows it well: “On Samuel Paty, the minister is expected”, concedes a member of his entourage. The memory of Samuel Paty therefore becomes a political object with the Reconquest party in the front line. “Samuel Paty is the most striking example of the rise of Islamism in schools“, denounces a relative of Eric Zemmour.
The far-right party makes the link between the spiral that led to the appalling assassination of the teacher and today the multiplication of religious habits in schools. Reconquête has launched a campaign on social networks with the hashtag “Protect our children”. His title : “Against the Islamic offensive at school“.
At the Ministry of National Education, there is no question of arm wrestling. Since his appointment, Pap Ndiaye has avoided responding to controversies. His cabinet rejects the idea of a law on abayas, these loose and long clothes. This week, therefore, the minister should simply reaffirm the principles of the 1905 and 2004 laws.”On secularism, Pap Ndiaye is intransigent, but he does not make it a combat weapon“, deciphers one of his advisers…
Will this be enough to limit the controversy? That’s the whole question, because, opposite, Eric Zemmour wants to hit hard. The polemicist announced a rally next Saturday in the square Samuel Paty, located in Paris, opposite the Sorbonne. A demonstration, the very day when Pap Ndiaye will be precisely at La Sorbonne to award college students the first “Samuel Paty Prize for Freedom of Expression”. Mediatically and politically, the two events risk colliding…
In 2020, at the time of the assassination of Samuel Paty, officials on all sides called for unity. “It’s time for a political truce“, confided for example an adviser to the Elysée Palace. Two years later, obviously, the climate is very different.