Pupils’ grief as teacher is beheaded in terror attack
SOCIAL media bosses were summoned by the French government after it emerged the terrorist who beheaded a teacher may have been led to his victim by an online campaign of harassment.
Samuel Paty, 47, was murdered with a butcher’s knife in the street about 300m from the school in ConflansSainte-Honorine, north west of Paris, at around 5pm on Friday.
He was targeted for using cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a class on freedom of expression.
A week earlier, one man who said his daughter was in Mr Paty’s class recorded a video shared on social media in which he branded the teacher a thug and appealed to others to “join forces and say ‘stop, don’t touch our children’”.
Mr Paty’s name and school address were also put on the internet after he showed the cartoons of a nude Mohammed in class. He suggested any Muslims who might be offended should leave the room before showing the images.
The killer had approached pupils in the street and asked them to point out his victim, Jean-François Ricard, the anti-terrorist prosecutor, said yesterday. An 18-year-old Chechen-Russian, named only as Abdoulakh Anzorov, posted a photo of his victim’s severed head on Twitter where it was seen by some of his pupils – before he was shot dead by police.
One parent, Delphine, whose daughter was in Mr Paty’s class last year, told The Sunday Telegraph: “My daughter has access to so many concerning websites. She saw the images of the body online, and many of the kids did too. That’s what worries me most.”
The terrorist, who was not known to intelligence services, was granted a 10-year residency in France as a refugee in March. He lived in Evreux in Normandy. Addressing Emmanuel Macron, the French president, on Twitter, with a picture of the severed head, he wrote “I executed one of your hell dogs who dared to belittle Muhammad.” Social media bosses were summoned to talks at France’s Interior Ministry after what Mr Macron called a “blatant Islamist terrorist attack”. There will be a national tribute to Mr Paty on Wednesday.
Hundreds of people, many still visibly shocked, gathered around the Bois d’Aulne secondary school yesterday to pay their tributes to the history and geography teacher.
Parents and students pointed to the role social media played in magnifying the controversy over the freedom of expression class Mr Paty gave two weeks before the murder. Valerie Lalanne, a Spanish teacher in a highschool in the Yvelines department, where the attack happened, said: “Us teachers, we are the protectors of freedom of expression. We can’t back down now.”
Marjorie Goetz, a 46-year-old neighbour and a civil servant whose son will join the school next year, said: “As a citizen, I’m against censorship. But as a mother, I can’t take those risks.”
For Muslim residents, the fear of a backlash added to the anger over the killing. “He was my son’s teacher. We are here to pay our respects and also show, as Muslims, that we are not like these people,” said Stephanie Paris, 33.
Mr Ricard said an investigation of murder with a suspected terrorist motive had been opened. The prosecutor said a text claiming responsibility and a photograph of the victim were found on the suspect’s phone.
Nine suspects have been arrested. Five were rounded up by police, among them two parents of pupils at the College du Bois d’Aulne, on Friday night and four were arrested yesterday. They include the parents of the killer, his 17-year-old brother and grandfather.
“Our community is horrified like all French people by this incident,” said the Strasbourg-based Assembly of Chechens in Europe. It said that “no community can be held responsible for all isolated acts of its nationals”.
Investigators suspect the killer had been angered by a decision by Charlie Hebdo, the satirical paper, to republish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to coincide with the trial of 14 alleged accomplices of two Islamists who killed 12 people at its offices five years ago.
‘My daughter saw the images of the body online, and many of the kids did too. That’s what worries me most’