“There is not a before and an after Samuel Paty, there is a “during”… and we are still there”

Stéphane Simon is a journalist, producer, and author of the book investigation The last days of Samuel Paty (Lead, 2023).

LE FIGARO. – Your film highlights the fight “for the truth » which Mickaëlle Paty, the sister of Samuel Paty, courageously leads. What is the truth of these eleven days of “descent into hell » ?

Stéphane SIMON. – The genesis of this tragedy is little known. On the Paty affair, it is particularly notable, it was necessary to write a 250-page book then meet Mickaëlle Paty to try to disentangle the truth from the falsehood on events that the administration has kept quiet and which are inglorious for colleagues by Samuel Paty. We carried out this investigative work with a whole team for almost two years, through the writing of the book in 2023 and the production of this documentary.

The truth in question is terrible. Samuel Paty was abandoned by his colleagues and abandoned by the administration, which was unable to draw the consequences of this schoolgirl’s lie and show solidarity with her. Abandoned, finally, by the ministries and in particular by the Ministry of the Interior which failed to deploy the necessary and useful system for the protection of Samuel Paty. When we think that all it took was a phone call from the Yvelines territorial brigade allowing Samuel Paty to stay at home for a few days, we are furious to think that this teacher could have been killed in the unspeakable conditions that we knows.

The investigation reveals that Samuel Paty was, for a long time, pointed out as the person responsible for a disorder when he was only the victim of an odious lie. We now know that a girl invented fabrications slandering the course of Samuel Paty – although impeccable and unquestionable – and anathema to him at the origin of his death. This young girl was sentenced to 18 months of probation during the examination of the first part of the Paty affair at the Paris court in December 2023…

Your documentary reveals serious failings which incriminate the management of Samuel Paty, his colleagues, the intelligence services, the State… Even mentioning a “state scandal “. Is restoring the truth in some way doing justice?

Of course, reestablishing the truth is the best tribute that we can pay to Samuel Paty. This documentary is only part of the actions undertaken to enable, before the administrative court, to bring to the attention of the public all the failings and dysfunctions of the State revealed in these investigations. France is a country that lives in denial and prefers to ignore problems rather than confront them. Naming things clearly is a way of helping to ensure that the drama of Samuel Paty does not happen again.

It is high time that teachers realize that the only outcome available to us is solidarity and courage, rather than tributes. in retrospect…

Stéphane Simon

However, until now, the examination of conscience has not taken place: the same causes, the same effects. Since the murder of Samuel Paty, there has been that of Dominique Bernard in Arras, or, more recently, the events in Tourcoing… Not exhaustive, these examples in the school environment continue to horrify. Moreover, the only way to confront Islamism and its infiltration into schools is to state all the truths in order to collectively roll up our sleeves.

The Minister of National Education supported in The Tribune that if secularism is threatened, “attacks on secularism “, they, “retreat “. Recently, a teacher was hit by her student after asking her to remove her veil. Was there an after Samuel Paty, as Jean-Michel Blanquer predicted?

Mickaëlle Paty expresses it admirably: there is not a before and an after Samuel Paty, there is a during and we are always in this “while”. The triumphalist press releases reporting a decline in attacks on secularism in schools should be taken with a pinch of salt. Certainly, the reaffirmation of authority by Gabriel Attal had its effect, when he put a point on the wearing of the abaya in class, and thus made it possible to reduce the number of students who present themselves in Islamic attire. However, there are also many professors who no longer report attacks on secularism in establishments, weary of war. Before believing that the problems have been resolved, we must understand that things are not as simple as they may seem from a purely statistical point of view.

The film reveals that one in two teachers under the age of thirty refuses to work in an establishment bearing the name of Samuel Paty… What does this say about the younger generations?

Today, National Education is in a strange state. She welcomes eminently questionable figures on the decline in attacks on secularism. But this obscures the self-censorship to which teachers in each establishment, college or high school, are subject. Many of them hide violence and other problems linked to the exercise of their teaching. Worse than that: today, more than one teacher in two does not teach everything that the school curriculum provides, preferring self-censorship to the risk of conflict with parents of problematic students (as in the Paty affair) or rowdy students.

Indeed, this self-censorship leads certain teachers to fear the very exercise of their profession in middle or high schools called Samuel Paty. This is the height! On one side, an unfortunate victim, on the other, a lie and Islamism. Today, we no longer want to feel compassion for this victim, we are wary, we are afraid for ourselves. It is high time that teachers realize that the only outcome available to us is solidarity and courage, rather than tributes. in retrospect…