At the specially composed assize court,
One is traumatized by the attack he witnessed. The other is consumed by unjustified guilt. These two former colleagues of Samuel Paty, who testified this Wednesday at the bar of the specially composed assize court, remain deeply marked by the assassination of the professor of history and geography.
His PE colleague, Charlie J., has long wondered what would have happened if he had left Bois d'Aulnes college on October 16, 2020, “two minutes earlier”. “I kept replaying the scene,” he says. Maybe I would have arrived sooner and could have defended him. Maybe I would have witnessed the scene. » By talking with a psychologist, he finally understood that “the timing was like this”. And that he had to stop thinking about this damn schoolbook that he took the time to put away before leaving the establishment this Friday afternoon.
On the day of the incident, Charlie J. went to the toilet around 4:30 p.m. “It’s the last time I see Samuel Paty,” he says, his voice choked with emotion. He's showing a film to his class and I say to myself that it's incredible to go to work in these conditions and be so threatened. » A quarter of an hour later, the bell rang, marking the start of the school holidays. Very short blond hair, blue eyes, a goatee, Charlie J. gets in his car, leaves the parking lot and turns on the radio. Suddenly, he sees “two men on the ground”. “I see closed eyes, blood on the face, a person who doesn’t look alive at all,” he recalls. An individual is “kneeling” and making “dynamic movements, a little back and forth”.
“A body in two parts”
The PE teacher immediately imagines that it is an ordinary “road accident”. He parks, takes his “first aid kit” and gets out of his vehicle to help the injured person. He is about 10 meters away when he sees “a body in two parts”. A person, “very calm, very serene”, dressed all in black, says to him: “He insulted the prophet Mohammed”. “I don’t look at her, I have no memory of her face or her voice,” continues the witness who is “paralyzed,” “a bit in a daze,” “lost.” “I don’t know where I live anymore. » He responds “robobically” to the terrorist. ” Ah OK. » Then he gets back into his car. Deep down, he immediately understands “what had happened”. But he tries to “persuade” himself that he is wrong. That it was not a human head that he saw on the tarmac but a “backpack”.
Charlie J. walks around the block and returns to the scene where the police have just arrived. His “left leg is trembling more and more”. For an hour, Charlie is “in total denial”. It was while watching the news that he “realized what happened.” A bit like July 14, 2016, when he was “caught in the crowd movement of the Nice attack”.
At the start of the school year, he had to speak to the students about the tragedy for two hours. But he realized that he was “incapable”. “I'm supposed to welcome them, help them, when it's me who needs help. » “Even if my pain and that of my colleagues was strong, it is incomparable” to that of the victim’s family, he wants to clarify. Today, he expects from this trial “that the accused assume their responsibilities” and wants them to be sentenced to “sentences commensurate with the facts”.
” I was mistaken “
Short hair, glasses, gray beard, black sweater, Jeff T. “regrets the words” used in an email to his colleagues. This 51-year-old history and geography professor wrote that he “dissociated himself” from Samuel Paty. “I refused to be associated with the fact of having asked certain children to leave the court, and I have not changed my mind,” he explains on the stand. When we do a course, it must be for all audiences, we address everyone.” For him, “offering the students to go out was a mistake”. At the time, he even considered that it was “discrimination”. ” I was mistaken. It took me a long time to understand it, he adds. In retrospect, I was too harsh on that. » If Samuel Paty “was there”, he would ask him “forgive me for having been so hard on him”. It was just an “adult problem on principle”, “nothing else”.
He later understood that his colleague was “threatened physically and more seriously” than he imagined. “For me, the serious threat was a demonstration” of Muslims in front of the establishment, insists the witness, who often clears his throat. He still does not understand why the former principal of the establishment received Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist who is now in the dock, in her office. Jeff T. describes this visit as an “intrusion”. Because for him, “Islamism is the fascism of today. He attacks democracy.” But he refuses to “judge it a posteriori”. “There were many things that were beyond us and still are beyond us. »
“I am in mourning”
On October 16, Jeff T. learned of the death of Samuel Paty from a colleague. “It has torn my heart, until now. Even if the court of public opinion gave me a negative image, I am in mourning. He was assassinated in an Islamist terrorist attack. » When he returned from vacation, there was a rumor in the establishment that he had called Samuel Paty “racist”. “I am responsible for what I wrote, but I did nothing else,” underlines this witness who refuses to be “designated as a scapegoat”. The six months following the tragedy “were quite difficult”. The principal informed him that he too was “threatened” and that he had to leave the region. “I took time off and returned to work in 2021 in another high school. » Since then, he has never spoken out on this matter, “so as not to inflame the situation”.
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