Eleven days. Not one more. This is how long it took between the false denunciation of a student and the beheading by an Islamist jihadist of Professor Samuel Paty in front of the Bois d’Aulne college, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Eleven days during which all human passions will come to light, from the most noble to the most abject, passing through the cowardice and indifference of the greatest number. Eleven days that do not pass. At least for those who think that public education is not a profession like the others and that the act of forming citizens deserves the respect of all.
“It is these eleven days that I wanted to tell in order to describe the sequence of events and to capture the thread of responsibilities, the absence of reactions from the authorities and the failures of the State. It can’t be told in five minutes, with crude shortcuts,” says Stéphane Simon. His book, The last days of Samuel Paty. Investigation into a tragedy that should have been avoided (Plon), comes at a key time given that, this fall, a senatorial commission of inquiry will take over the whole case before the trial, which is expected to be held in 2024.
But this television producer, who is also a journalist and writer in his spare time, had another reason for writing this book. “If this case affected me, it’s because I myself am the son, grandson and great-grandson of a teacher,” he said. The tragic disappearance of Samuel Paty was particularly shocking to me, because I thought he could have been one of mine. »
A “hound from hell”
Teachers in the Vendée in the 1930s, Stéphane Simon’s grandparents had the mission of teaching French and the values of the Republic to children descended from the Chouans. “And yet, he says, they never had to put up with situations like those of Samuel Paty. What happened so that in a century, not only are teachers no longer respected, but so that they are executed like “hounds of hell”? These are the words that Abdoullakh Anzorov uttered immediately after beheading Samuel Paty.
Professor of history-geography and civic education, Samuel Paty was executed on October 16, 2020 by the Chechen Abdoullakh Anzorov, who had never seen him in his life, but who was in contact with Islamist fighters in Syria. For eleven days, the teacher had been the victim of a false trial that was looping on social networks. The young Zora (fictitious first name) Chnina accused him of having forced the Muslim students to leave the class while he showed two caricatures of Muhammad. In reality, Zora had never attended the class. A few days earlier, as he had been doing for years, the professor had given a civics lesson on freedom of expression in which he briefly showed two caricatures of Charlie Hebdo retrieved from a Ministry of Education website. He never asked Muslims to leave, but simply offered those who wanted to do so or to close their eyes. As Stéphane Simon tells it, the course ended with this premonitory sentence: “Is all this worth losing your life? Because life is sacred…”
“It took me 250 pages to understand that, in this case, there were a lot of people who were supposed to be in Samuel Paty’s camp, but who let it happen,” he said. Between those who did not want to make waves and those who behaved cowardly, not to mention those who outright dissociated themselves from Samuel Paty and who overwhelmed him, there was a huge gray area that had to be lifted. »
Above all, no waves!
Throughout this meticulous account, we discover above all civil servants paralyzed by fear. As Stéphane Simon tells it, between his colleagues who do not stick together, his principal who is paralyzed by an event that could harm the school, the police officers who do not take the measure of the threats and the intelligence services who do not react to the many reports of the killer on social networks, Samuel Paty will be left to himself.
Basically, says Stéphane Simon, Samuel Paty will have been the victim of this attitude which, in the face of Islamist propaganda, consists above all in not making waves. “It’s a French disease, but also a Western one. We are afraid of being seen as racists. We prefer to be silent rather than face reality and listen to what Samuel Paty had to say. Even if this young girl lies brazenly claiming to have been stigmatized, the principal will ask the teacher to apologize, when he has absolutely nothing to apologize for. The logic would have been to listen to the professor, to restore the truth and not to apologize for existing. »
The overwhelming majority of teachers feel helpless. They prefer to be silent rather than take blows. I wrote this book so that they no longer feel alone.
Especially since Samuel Paty is a peaceful layman, explains the author, not at all an activist. “He is someone who does his job very well. Besides these caricatures that he shows for a few seconds to his students, he took them from the Canopé network of National Education, which offers educational material for teachers. »
During his investigation, Stéphane Simon went back to the Minister of Education, who was then Jean-Michel Blanquer. “When he tells me that he had not heard of Samuel Paty before his assassination, not only do I have doubts, but I know that the fact went up to the Academy and that, normally, he must have be reported to the minister’s office. When he explains to me that about thirty events of this type occur every day, we see that there is a problem of resources. What good are these alert procedures if there is no one to deal with them? »
A state scandal
The same questions are aimed at the intelligence services which had been alerted 17 times to the dangerousness of Abdoullakh Anzorov. “The weekend before the death of Samuel Paty, there are still four reports. The senatorial commission of inquiry will have to explain to us why nothing happened. There is a dimension of state scandal in this affair. »
The most disturbing chapter of the book, however, remains the one that tells how, once on the scene, the jihadist was only able to identify the teacher with the help of five students. They have also been indicted for “complicity in assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise”. Elias, Mohamed, Julien, Idriss and Hicham have, in fact, designated the victim to the killer in exchange for 300 euros (437 Canadian dollars). However, according to the exchanges they had with Anzorov, they could not ignore his desire to do battle.
“One wonders how children can designate a teacher in this way,” says Stéphane Simon. These children do not know that he is going to be beheaded, but they know that he is going to undergo a beating. For several days, these students bathed in the idea that this teacher was Islamophobic and that he had done wrong. Once again, the school did not unite behind Samuel Paty. »
According to the author, what is called Islamophobia is largely overvalued in France. Of the 1,659 anti-religious acts recorded in 2021, 857 were anti-Christian, 589 anti-Semitic and 213 anti-Muslim. A sign that the malaise is still present, almost three years after the events, the Bois d’Aulne college has still not been renamed Samuel Paty. The bust of the professor which was to be installed in front of the establishment is still in a warehouse. It is therefore not surprising if, according to a survey carried out in 2021-2022 among 29,000 teachers, 53% consider that “secularism is threatened” in their school.
“The overwhelming majority of teachers feel helpless,” says Stéphane Simon. They prefer to be silent rather than take blows. I wrote this book so that they no longer feel alone. »