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Following the assassination of history professor Samuel Paty, the French government is planning a national memorial ceremony in the courtyard of the Sorbonne University in Paris. As announced by the Elysee Palace, the location of the event was chosen in accordance with the family of the deceased. President Emmanuel Macron received Paty’s family in person on Monday.
The Sorbonne represents a historical place of education and is a symbol of the spirit of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, the historic university has always been a setting for freedom of expression and exchange.
The French president’s wife, Brigitte Macron, will not attend the funeral. The “Première Dame” had contact with a person infected by the crown last Thursday and is therefore voluntarily quarantined.
Paty, a 47-year-old history teacher, was beheaded Friday in a northwestern Paris suburb on the street. The 18-year-old suspect with Russian-Chechen roots was shot and killed by police. Shortly after the fact, he had bragged about it on the Internet and wrote that the pedagogue had disparaged the prophet Muhammad. The teacher had shown Muhammad cartoons in class on the subject of freedom of expression. Then, the father of a schoolgirl mobilized massively against him online. Immediately after the crime, Macron spoke of an act of Islamist terrorism.
The death of the educator shocks France, shaken for years by Islamist terrorism. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday under the slogan “Je suis Samuel” or “Je suis Prof” (“I am a teacher”) to defend freedom of expression. More than 250 people have died in Islamist terrorist attacks in the country in recent years.
Minute of silence in the European Parliament
The European Parliament observed a minute of silence for Paty. Teachers now need support, said Parliament Speaker David Sassoli in Brussels. In France, the attack sparked wide political debate. Macron’s main competitor, right-wing populist Marine Le Pen, said that “the extermination of Islamism on French soil” was a must.
Parisian imam Hassen Chalghoumi called Paty a “martyr to freedom of expression” and warned against Islamist extremism. He called on all mosques in France to include Paty in their next prayer on Friday.
Interior Minister Darmanin said the father, who mobilized against the teacher online, and others “issued a fatwa against the teacher.” There is no other word for this. In Islam, a fatwa is legal information to clarify a religious or legal problem. The term made negative headlines around the world when Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death threat against British writer Salman Rushdie for blasphemy in 1989.
A defense council chaired by Macrons decided on Sunday night to improve security in the school area. As Élysée Insider reported, online platforms also need to be monitored more intensively in order to intervene more quickly if calls for violence are made.
Macron had already announced in a speech earlier in the month that he would take stronger action against “radical Islamism.” Try to establish a parallel society with different values in the country. Macron announced at the time that it would be easier for the authorities to dissolve clubs in the future. Interior Minister Darmanin says he wants to ban the CCIF (Collectif contre l’islamophobie en France) and Baraka City associations. CCIF resisted even before the announcement via Twitter that there was a hate campaign against the organization.
