Three professors will be heard by the Paris Special Assize Court as witnesses on Tuesday and two others on Wednesday November 13. Precisely the two teachers who had dissociated themselves from Samuel Paty following his lesson on caricatures, when he had suggested to students who might be shocked to leave the class. These teachers had expressed their disagreement, a few days before October 16, 2020.
“His method broke the bond of trust with the families”
The two teachers challenged not the course itself and the caricatures, but the fact of having removed students. In responding to an email from the principal of the college who asked her team to show solidarity with Samuel Paty, threatened by a parent, a French teacher first wrote: “His method has broken the bond of trust with families who put their children in the public eye.” And a history teacher added: “We do not have the right to ask students to leave a class based on their origins or their opinions. It is a way of making secularism appear as a form of intolerance.” Samuel Paty confided shortly before his death that he felt supported by the majority of his colleagues, but that he was angry at those who had broken away.
These testimonies will above all allow us to have the version of the facts of these two teachers. The history professor was in turn threatened with death, accused of not having supported his colleague. He had to leave the college quickly in November 2020. He teaches in another establishment.
He denies having spoken about his disagreement to his 3rd grade students, some of whom helped the terrorist spot Samuel Paty as he left school. But the question is no longer there, the students were tried and convicted last year. It was the Defense of the Islamist Abdelhakim Sefrioui who requested that these two professors be heard. The lawyers will undoubtedly seek to minimize the role of the preacher in the scheme by showing that the controversy already existed.
