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Just over a week ago, the teacher Samuel Paty was assassinated on an open street in a suburb of Paris. The police describe the murder as a terrorist act. Paty was beheaded in retaliation for teaching her students about French freedom of speech and later showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Five years ago, twelve people were killed in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. Even as revenge after the newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Trials against 14 suspected accomplices in the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo are expected soon.
Paty’s brutal murder has shaken France and the world. The act against Charlie Hebdo in 2015 is also an open wound in France. Last week, people have demonstrated for freedom of expression and in support of French secularism (laïcité). Laïcité’s tradition is strong in France and has ties to 1789 and the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights.
Mosques have been closed and associations banned as a result of the murder of teacher Paty. President Emmanuel Macron has made blunt statements such as “Islamists want our future.” In counter-reaction, boycotts of French products have been launched in several countries, such as Kuwait and Qatar. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reacted strongly to Macron’s remarks, saying that Macron needs to undergo a “psychic test.” This, in turn, prompted France to summon its ambassador to Turkey for consultations.
In tonight’s Agenda and in our newscasts we deepen the reactions in France. Agenda also conducts an interview with the French ambassador to Sweden, Etienne de Gonneville, to get an idea of how he sees the country’s strategy in the future and the reactions in the outside world.
