When she walked towards the witness stand with her determined look, her straight black skirt and her gray jacket with elbow patches, Tuesday, November 12, we immediately understood that the testimony of Audrey F., the principal of the school by Samuel Paty, would be sober and methodical. And that his testimony would prove extremely valuable in understanding the infernal spiral which led to the assassination of the history and geography professor on October 16, 2020.
Precious, first of all, because unlike Samuel Paty, who never had the opportunity to know his accusers, Audrey F. met the two men at the origin of the “ fatwa ”, these are his words, which led to his beheading. Precious, too, because she took note of all the events that took place during the ten days until her death.
It all started on October 7, 2020, when the principal decided to sanction a schoolgirl, Z., with two days of exclusion for “ incivility » and “ absences » repeated. A sanction unrelated to the course given the day before by Samuel Paty, from which Z. was also absent. But that's not what the schoolgirl told her parents: she told them she stood up to her teacher, who allegedly asked Muslim students to leave the class before projecting images of the prophet ” not ».
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“If we had been Jews…”
The next morning, the principal learns that the schoolgirl's father, Brahim Chnina, is waiting in front of the establishment to meet her and that he is accompanied by a second man. She agrees to receive them in her office in order to“calm the situation”. The second man, Abdelhakim Sefrioui, an old backpacker of Islamist activism, presents himself as “responsible for the imams of France”which it is not.
A thousand miles from a banal conversation with a parent of a student upset to learn that his daughter has been sanctioned, or even discriminated against, the interview immediately turns around the question of blasphemy: “It is Mr. Sefrioui who will take the lead. He refuses to allow a “thug” to use freedom of expression to show a caricature of the prophet, which he calls an “offensive to the sacred”, and asks me several times to fire this “thug”…”
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The main one tries to bring the two men back to their senses and “ refocus » the debate on what the young girl is really accused of. “Mr. Sefrioui steps back for a moment. I have the impression that he realizes that the exclusion has nothing to do with Mr. Paty's course. But it won't last… He threatens to come back with “Muslims” to demonstrate in front of the establishment. I try to regain control with Mr. Chnina by offering to come the next day to meet Mr. Paty. He tells me that there is no way he will come face to face with this “thug”…”
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