Samuel Paty is hostile to colleagues

AOn October 16, when he gave a short speech in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine after the beheading of the teacher Samuel Paty, President Emmanuel Macron expressly thanked the faculty and the school administration, who “withstood any pressure with remarkable courage. “. But the story of a faculty that heroically defended freedom of the press and freedom of expression, which was united behind history teacher Samuel Paty, has vanished in the course of the investigation.

Now it is clear that Paty has had to fight the hostility of several colleagues. Another teacher told him that he had shown the students in the classroom the cartoon of Muhammad from the satirical weekly “Charlie Hebdo”. Another teacher accused him of “playing in the hands of the Islamists” and of “discriminating against students”. The director also did not present herself as an unambiguous lawyer, but rather scolded Paty for her “clumsiness”. This is demonstrated by the exchange of e-mails between Samuel Paty, the school management and the teaching staff in the ten days between the lecture on freedom of the press on 6 October and the beheading of the history teacher on 16 October.

The director spoke of “embarrassment”

The newspaper “Le Monde” now has access to the e-mails managed by the Ministry of Education through an internal e-mail made available for each school district. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has repeatedly expressed himself vehemently against the left political tendency, widespread in the teaching staff, to consider Muslims as victims of discrimination and social disadvantage and therefore to ask for consideration. In France the term “Islamo-gauchisme” is used, which Blanquer recently declared war on in a radio conversation.

The faculty email exchange begins on October 8, two days after Paty took her press freedom class with her eighth grade students. “An individual threatened us to bring Muslims to school and to alert the press,” the director wrote to Paty. “Madame, maybe I’m missing some details,” Paty replied. “As I understand it, a person threatens to take Muslims to school so that their children (who are presumably also Muslims) have to look at the Prophet cartoons (while forcing me to say what or not to say what) does not really match to secularism). (…) This situation is so absurd as to seem almost comical ”, wrote the teacher.

Since “Charlie Hebdo” reprinted the cartoons of Muhammad at the start of the trial for the attacks in 2015, he brought a drawing from the satirical newspaper to class. He offered students to close their eyes or leave the class if they feared they would be shocked by the cartoon. At no time did he mention that he was only addressing Muslim students, as he was later mistakenly thought to be.

An educational assistant had previously agreed to supervise students who wanted to leave the room during this time. This alleged “segregation” between Muslim and non-Muslim students was later opposed by the father of a student who recorded a video and posted it on social networks.

The director also rated the procedure as “embarrassing”. On 9 October, the director announced in a circular letter to the entire college: “Monsieur Paty immediately admitted his clumsiness. (…) We are aware that he did not want to discriminate against anyone. “He concluded with the comment:” Monsieur Paty had a difficult week and it is important that we all support him “.