At the specially composed assize court,
White sweater, black shirt, glasses on his nose, Mathis* is sitting in the front row in this “major trials” room of the Paris courthouse. Jeanne, the mother of this 9-year-old boy, gets up and walks towards the bar. This Spanish professor, who teaches at the university, shared the life of Samuel Paty for eleven years. The couple met in Seine-et-Marne, in Champagne-sur-Seine. “We were colleagues,” the forty-year-old told the president of the specially composed assize court, Franck Zientara, this Friday. The couple later settled in Ergny-sur-Oise, in Val-d'Oise.
After their separation, “which was done on good terms”, they lived “50 meters” from each other. Near the college where her ex-spouse worked. And from the place where he was assassinated by Abdoullakh Anzorov on October 16, 2020. “Everything takes place within a very restricted geographical area. »
“We suffer, we live”
The day of the attack, Jeanne was returning from work by bus. When she got off, she immediately saw “panicked police cars and officers.” “The police had just killed the terrorist, but I didn’t know it yet. » She leaves to pick up her son from school. “He tells me that he heard firecrackers, but dangerous firecrackers,” she whispers. Back at home, Jeanne and Mathis have an early dinner. She learns while watching the news that a history and geography professor at Bois d'Aulne college has been killed. “I send text messages to Samuel which will go unanswered and the concern grows,” she continues. Then begins “a long evening of waiting”. Around 11:30 p.m., police officers came to his home and told him of the death of his ex-companion. “Mathis is still sleeping, still not knowing. » She thinks about the next day, when she will have to tell him “the death of his father”.
“We are indirect victims but the injury received that day is very real. It is invisible, psychic, but it has forever modified our vision of life, Jeanne insists. It's really unfair to see our lives marked by this attack for four years. » “The effects of post-traumatic stress” are still felt. “I have to force myself every day to make knives part of the cutlery we eat with. » Her son “lives every day with the fear that his mother will die at her work”, she continues, describing this situation as “unfair”. “We exist despite everything. We suffer, we live. » For her son, she asks for “truth and justice”. She wishes to be able to understand, through the trial of the eight accused, “the mechanics which generated the attack”.
“He loved teaching and enjoyed college”
With short hair, a white sweater, a pink scarf tied around her neck, Bernadette Paty, 77, places her notes on the desk. Her husband, Jean, who had “a bad fall”, is absent. It is therefore alone that she delivers to the court the memories she keeps of her son. “It was my husband who put Samuel to bed” when he was a child. He “didn’t want to read children’s stories” to him and preferred to tell him “the History of France”. This is how the young Samuel Paty discovered “a devouring passion for history”. The young boy was “a serious student, extremely respectful of people”. Growing up, he became a man “with a very, very great culture”, an “intellectual”. It was “impossible to talk about trivial things with him”. “He preferred the debate of ideas, even with his family.”
“Discreet” and “solitary”, Samuel Paty “was not a believer”, according to his mother. On the other hand, he was “extremely respectful of all religions”. “He studied them with the eyes of a historian. » His son was a “meticulous, conscientious, organized” teacher. “He loved teaching and enjoyed college,” she continues. Bernadette knew “that he was going to show these caricatures to illustrate a lesson”. He had prepared this course “on freedom of expression”, “while he was on vacation with us in August”. She and her husband were unaware “that he was in trouble since he showed” these drawings. Bernadette had spoken to him on the phone “the Sunday before his assassination”. “He didn’t tell us anything. » Her son, she said, wanted to “protect” them and not “worry” them.
An absence “increasingly heavy to bear”
“We learned of his assassination while watching television but we were only officially informed after midnight,” sighs Bernadette. Before adding: “Losing a child in such conditions is unbearable and unacceptable. Losing our son because he showed drawings disgusts us. What has become of our life since that day? A big void. We don't want to do anything anymore. Before, we went to the cinema and the theater. Now we force ourselves to take short walks. Samuel's absence is increasingly heavy to bear. » Since the tragedy, “the entire family has been destroyed”. “We no longer want anything, we are so destroyed that my husband is sick,” she laments.
Bernadette and her loved ones have received expressions of support “from all over the world”. “It was very shocking that we could attack a teacher. » The “tributes paid to him” warm his heart. “Streets, squares, media libraries, village halls, avenues… His name is throughout France,” she notes. The Bois d'Aulne college will now bear his son's name. “I also read that some parents did not completely agree,” she said bitterly. This former teacher is “happy to be retired because at the moment teachers are challenged”. “I no longer understand the world we live in, it’s beyond me. »
“Stand up”
Mickaëlle Paty, one of Samuel Paty's two sisters, takes the stand. She reads a text entitled “Stand up.” This nurse anesthetist says that her life “sort of stopped on October 16, 2020”. She is angry with the accused who threw her brother “out to pasture”. “It’s your trial that has begun, you who put my brother on trial,” she tells them. Before emphasizing: “Samuel was not assassinated for having shown caricatures and having committed blasphemy which, moreover, has no legal value. Samuel was assassinated by a radicalized Islamist seeking jihad, Abdoullakh Anzorov. It is Islamism that is at issue and not caricatures. »
Gaëlle, the victim's other sister, also addresses the accused. “Without you, Samuel would be here today, he would be alive. Everyone at your level could have stopped this disastrous spiral. » “It’s not enough to not get your hands dirty so as not to be responsible for my brother’s death,” she adds. This bookseller and teacher, who lives in the south of France, assures that she will never accept “the slightest excuse from people who do not recognize their responsibility”. Asking for “respect and decency in this trial”, she expects “responses from justice, only justice, answers that match the challenge”.
*The first name has been changed
