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Paris France – The gruesome murder of a teacher by an 18-year-old suspect of Chechen origin is testing the country’s fragile relationship with its Muslim minority, with growing fears of collective punishment.
The teenager attacked Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old father, in broad light on Friday, beheading him near his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb about 15 miles (24 km) from central Paris.
There has been a torrent of pain and shock among senior officials; Paty was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest honor, on Wednesday at a ceremony attended by President Emmanuel Macron. Thousands of people have attended the protests.
Paty’s attacker got angry because he showed his students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
In the days after the assassination, the government launched an offensive against Muslim organizations, while self-defense groups attacked mosques; The places of worship in Béziers and Bordeaux have been placed under police protection after being threatened with violence.
Tensions between the state and Muslims in France, Europe’s largest Muslim minority, have deepened.
They were already on a downward trend after Macron, on October 2, launched a plan against what he called “Islamist separatism” and said that Islam was “in crisis” around the world.
Muslims fear that Paty’s tragic death is already being used as a weapon to promote a government policy that they worry that it confuses Islam with “terrorism.”
“Muslims are being targeted,” Yasser Louati, a French Muslim activist, told Al Jazeera, adding that he believed Macron was “using Islamophobia to boost his campaign.”
On Monday, the French government said it was stepping up its crackdown on suspected “extremists”, carrying out multiple raids and threatening the mass expulsion of more than 200 people.
More than 50 Muslim organizations are under attack; the “Cheikh Yassine Collective”, an organization that has already been banned in the wake of the murder. The group’s founder, Abdelhakim Sefrioui, is being detained by the police for posting a video on YouTube insulting Paty.
But there are more surprising names on the list.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has proposed banning the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), an association that tracks hate crimes against Muslims, in a move that more than 50 civil society groups have warned against. and academics.
In an interview with French radio station Europe 1, Darmanin lashed out at CCIF as an “enemy of the republic,” adding that it was one of several organizations that he would dissolve at Macron’s personal request.
CCIF condemned Darmanin’s language as slander, stating that the government was “criminalizing the fight against Islamophobia.”
Darmanin, who was appointed in July during a cabinet shakeup, often draws attention for comments that attract conservative and far-right parties.
In an interview with BFMTV on Tuesday night, he said he was “shocked” to see Halal and Kosher food aisles in supermarkets, which he believes contributes to separatism in France, comments that were instantly mocked on social media.
But there are fears that recent government actions contribute to a speech that endangers the lives of Muslims.
“What is happening in France right now is unprecedented,” CCIF co-founder and activist Marwan Muhammed wrote on Twitter last week. “Fundamental freedoms are at stake as the government focuses on stigmatizing and criminalizing Muslim communities.”
Many viewed the government’s energetic and accelerated response to Friday’s attack as a dire warning that the law could be manipulated to target Muslims in general.
The crackdown has echoes of France’s response to the deadly November 2015 attacks in Paris by ISIL. Human rights groups criticized those measures, which saw mass arrests and raids under the state of emergency, saying they yielded little results and left Muslims feeling like second-class citizens.
A French Republican guard holds a portrait inside the courtyard of the Sorbonne University in Paris on October 21, 2020, during a national tribute to French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded for displaying cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his education class. civic. [Francois Mori/ POOL/AFP]
During Wednesday’s eulogy, Macron remembered Paty as someone who “loved books, loved knowledge.”
Originally with the intention of becoming a researcher, Paty chose instead to follow the same path as her parents and become a teacher.
Paty was eventually killed, Macron said, “because he made the decision to teach.”
He had shown the cartoons during a free speech lesson.
Muslims believe that any representation of the Prophet is blasphemy.
Paty reportedly advised Muslim students who might be offended to leave the room or look away during this part of the discussion, as a measure of sensitivity.
The attacker posted a photo of the beheading on Twitter before he was shot and killed by police. According to French media, the teenager had been in contact with Paty before the murder.
Fifteen people have been arrested as part of an investigation into the murder, including the relatives of the attacker.
The attack also follows two stabbings last month outside the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which republished cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in September at the start of the trial for those suspected of participating in the January 2015 attacks that killed 17 people.
In his anticipated October 2 speech, Macron sought to address “radicalization.”
The new law that he proposes to further distance religion from education and the public sector in France, aims to strengthen the “secular”, France’s strict separation between church and state.
Among other things, it would allow the state to control international funding coming into French mosques, limit homeschooling to prevent Muslim schools from being run by what Macron called “religious extremists”, and create a special certification program for have the magnets trained in France.
Mame-Fatou Niang, an associate professor of French studies at Carnegie Mellon University, told Al Jazeera that the government was not simply “going to war against terrorists.”
“Rather they are taking these seeds of division planted by terrorists to erase any gray areas and create a completely polarized society … it is a statement not only against fundamentalists but against Muslims in general.”
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