Teaching after Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard

QFour years after the death of Samuel Paty, on October 16, 2020, one year after that of Dominique Bernard, on October 13, 2023, a minute of silence was observed, Monday, October 14, in all high schools and colleges in France. Commemorating these tragic events, yesterday inconceivable, which constitute the assassinations of two teachers by radicalized Islamists is necessary, not only to pay tribute to them, but also to affirm the country’s support for its teachers and to try to draw all the consequences of these tragedies which we now know are not isolated.

To the astonishment caused by the death of the history professor from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), murdered for having exhibited caricatures of Mohammed during a course on freedom of expression, was added anger sparked by the inability of national education to protect a teacher who was openly threatened. Since then, the institution has made progress: firm instructions intended to report incidents have been disseminated and the sharing of information with the police and the courts makes it possible to stop threatening content on social networks more quickly. As for “functional protection”, which takes care of the legal defense of teachers who are threatened, insulted or harassed, it is much more frequently granted. Samuel Paty had not benefited from it. “No wave” is no longer the rule.

But the assassination of Dominique Bernard in Arras (North) added a terrifying collective dimension for the profession: his assassin, Mohammed Mogouchkov, a 21-year-old Russian of Ingush origin, assured, during his interrogations, that he had voluntarily targeted the French teacher, whose student he had been, because he taught “one of the subjects where we transmit passion, love, attachment to the system in general of the Republic, democracy, human rights”. It is now clear that public schools can be targeted for what they represent. And that a professor can be attacked regardless of what he does, simply for who he is: the incarnation of the values ​​of the Republic.

Situation conducive to aggression and provocations

The feeling of loneliness, even fear, that teachers experience is all the more understandable since the school is almost the only institution responsible for transmitting the secular ideal. And that the international situation remains conducive to aggressiveness and provocations. In this context, field surveys including The World reports show that teachers have mobilized strongly to manage the consequences of the attacks in the classrooms. A particularly arduous and unprecedented task, explaining to their students events that target them and upset them themselves.

In this heavy climate, neither the relativization of the requirements posed by the application of secular principles of freedom of choice, equality and respect – notably the 2004 law prohibiting the conspicuous wearing of religious symbols at school – nor the The hysterization of secularism with anti-Muslim connotations present in the political debate, nor the reduction of this secularism to prohibitions or a catechism, are likely to help teachers. Beyond the brutal and repeated shocks, it is over time and with the firm support of the State that teachers will be able to gain serenity and continue the essential: protecting the school against Islamist manipulation and enlightening their students. like Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard did.