The former principal of Samuel Paty's college testified this Tuesday, November 12, at the Paris Special Assize Court. She returned to the multiple alerts she launched before the professor's assassination.
“On the one hand, I said to myself that it's not possible that it was Mr. (Samuel) Paty and another voice told me that it was him. I was stunned. I leaned against the wall, I I slipped gently”, recalled this Tuesday, November 12 before the special criminal court of Paris, the former principal of the college where the professor who was murdered on October 16, 2020 worked by a young radical Islamist.
For the first hearing of former colleagues of Samuel Paty, the courtroom of the “major trials” is full of professors. The planned schedule was delayed by several hours, but the teaching world wants to be present.
Audrey F., the former principal of the Bois-d'Aulne college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), who now works in a French international high school in China, evokes an establishment “where life was good” until lie of a 13-year-old student, the exploitation of this lie by an Islamist militant and the brutal assassination of a history teacher described as “someone serious and conscientious”.
A fatal spiral
Black skirt, gray jacket over purple blouse, Audrey F. looks back on the chronology of the events. On October 8, Z.'s mother, a 4th grade schoolgirl and student of Samuel Paty, burst into the principal's office “excited”. Z.'s mother, “aggressive” and “disrespectful”, accuses the professor of having excluded her daughter from college because she had opposed his intention to show a caricature of the “naked” prophet during his course on the freedom of expression.
Z. was indeed excluded from school for two days but, explains the principal, for disciplinary reasons. Above all, the young girl invented everything. That day, she had skipped Samuel Paty's class.
But the fatal spiral is set in motion. Mid-morning, the schoolgirl's father, Brahim Chnina, invited himself into the principal's office accompanied by Abdelhakim Sefrioui who introduced himself as “responsible for the imams of France”, which he did not never been. The two men are today in the dock for participation in a criminal terrorist association, a crime punishable by 30 years in prison.
But on October 8, 2020, in the principal's office, the two men denounce a “rogue” teacher and demand accountability. Abdelhakim Sefrioui threatens the principal to organize “a Muslim demonstration” in front of the college and in front of the rectorate. The founder of the pro-Hamas collective Cheikh Yassine finds it “unacceptable” to have had to wait outside before being received by the principal. “If we had been Jewish, it wouldn’t have happened like that,” he tells the principal.
“I failed to protect him”
And the escalation continues. Videos made by the two men with the name of the professor and the college are broadcast on social networks. The establishment receives threatening emails and anonymous calls. Brahim Chnina and Abdelhakim Sefrioui file a complaint against Samuel Paty for disseminating “pornographic images”.
Audrey F. contacts her superiors, the police, the town hall of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. In turn, Samuel Paty files a complaint against his harassers. The commissioner who took his complaint advised him to stay at home until the holidays which were to begin on October 17.
“It would be a step backwards to stay at home,” replies the professor.
The rest is known. On October 16, Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, stabbed and beheaded Samuel Paty. “It's difficult for me to answer the simple question: 'How are you?'. I want to answer: 'I still have my head on my shoulders so it's okay, it can be okay'”. A silence and Audrey F. adds: “I failed to protect him (…) It’s a huge waste”.
“I will not be able to move forward as long as these people (present in the box) are not found guilty (…) I tell myself that if there is justice, maybe I will succeed in moving forward,” underlines Audrey F. still standing straight on the stand in court.
