“Samuel Paty is me, or rather it could have been me. That's the first thing I said to myself,” recalled a history and geography teacher at Jean-Baptiste-Dumas secondary school in the southern town of Alès. It was a year ago, on October 16th 2020, that Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, was the victim of a gruesome act of terrorism in the streets of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in the north-west suburbs of Paris near the school where he had shown pupils caricatures of Muhammad as part of a lesson. The teacher in Alès will never forget the tragedy. “I learnt about the news when I got home from school after an hour's drive … I was completely devastated. And I cried.”
While the decapitation of Samuel Paty affected the entire population, the news hit the nation's teaching staff particularly hard. When Mediapart visited the town of Alès in early October to gauge the mood of teachers a year after the murder, they often found it difficult to put their reaction to it into words. “Stunned”, “shocked”, “horror” was the reaction of some. Another said it undermined their sense of “dignity” as a “free person”.
They all talked about the traps of fake news and social media, the prevalence of radical speech on television, the lack of action by what they see as a worn-out education system and also the problems of debating certain subjects in class. Some also bluntly stated that they are very worried by the spectre of fundamentalism. Since the bloody attack on satirical publication Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 – it became a target after publishing cartoons of Muhammad – some had already been preparing for the worst. “In 2015 I thought to myself: one day a history teacher is going to get taken out,” said the history and geography teacher at Jean-Baptiste-Dumas school, which is located in an education priority zone in the town.
A few years ago I'd have reacted immediately.
While it took him a little time to admit it to himself, this teacher accepts he no longer has the same automatic reflexes he had before Samuel Paty's murder. He recalls a recent class presentation about the trial of some of those involved in the Paris terror attacks of November 13th 2015, which included a deadly attack on the Bataclan music venue and customers at a café. When he was challenged by a pupil, he froze. “It was during a lesson on moral and civic education [editor's note, lessons brought in during 2015 to instil values of liberty, equality and fraternity, justice, mutual respect and the absence of discrimination, it is abbreviated to EMC in French] last month,” said the teacher. “We were in the process of discussing the Bataclan and the people who were having a drink on a terrace that evening. I wanted to speak about the fact that Salah Abdeslam [editor's note, one of the accused] was targeting 'unbelievers' and a pupil said to me: 'Yes but sir, the people were going to a concert and for we Muslims music isn't really allowed.' I was taken aback and didn't respond. I wanted to give myself time to think. I think that a few years ago I'd have reacted immediately,” said the teacher, who notes that there was no trace of aggression on the teenage pupil's part. Instead, the teacher played for time. “I then wondered what sources of information they had access to at their homes ...”
Located 700 kilometres or 435 miles to the south, Alès does not have much in common with Conflans-Sainte-Honorine except that it is of a similar size – about 40,000 inhabitants – and is also a town noted for usually being fairly peaceful. However, surrounded by industrial and commercial wastelands, this former mining town in the Gard département or county is poorer than Conflans. In some areas the “social and cultural poverty” is such that Laurent Machetto prefers to focus on the basics. This history and geography teacher at the Daudet middle school in the town, an establishment that has missed out on being in a priority education area even though it is next to the town's working class district of Les Cévennes, is quite blunt in his approach. “As far an I'm concerned religion is a fraud, and I tell them that,” he said. “I also tell them that the 'holy books' are propaganda.”
Such comments are his way of dealing with attempts to let religion interfere in his classroom. “I see it on Fridays sometimes when several pupils are absent. Half of them can be missing at [the festival of] Eid,” said the teacher, who comes from a long line of communists and who is pretty well respected despite his admitted appetite for provocation. “Since [the murder of] Paty some colleagues say I go too far,” he said.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Another history teacher at Daudet middle school said religion occupied a far greater presence in the classroom when she was teaching in one of France's overseas territories. “Over there the pupils came to see us with a bible at the end of the lessons. They were often Adventist or neo-Baptist pupils,” she said. “We had political science workshops on Saturday mornings but as it was their Sabbath they didn't come. After school they went straight to the temple; their entire system of thought was based around that. I spent my time asking them to put their cross under their T-shirt … but they understood,” added the teacher, who cannot help thinking that at the slightest remark now “everything can change dramatically”.
I'm an atheist and I tell them that for me hell is perhaps paradise.
Whether in his living room with its feel of a riad - a traditional Moroccan-style courtyard - or in his classroom, a maths teacher at Jean-Baptiste-Dumas secondary school readily admitted his fondness for going off at tangents with his pupils. Sipping his coffee he added: “As long as it is respectful of others!” In mid-equation and when he is in the mood, the mathematician will happily discuss freedom of expression or religion. “There's never been aggression between us and yet I provoke them and wind them up,” he said. “I'm an atheist and I tell them that for me hell is perhaps paradise. Because if it means the end of the 'bearded ones' in all religions...” He smiled.
Convinced that numbers can open any door, the teacher uses the slightest opportunity to make his point. “We often reason with prejudices. And our way of reasoning in mathematics is comparable with our way of reasoning in life. I also try to make them understand that,” said the maths teacher, who after Samuel Paty's murder was nonetheless given a lecture by his daughter. “Be careful what you say to your pupils, that could have been you,” she told him.
These have been busy times at the home of Gilles Roumieux, a history teacher at Jean-Racine middle school which attracts pupils aged 11 to 15 both from the centre of Alès and surrounding villages. Exactly a year after Samuel Paty's murder, Roumieux's living room is overflowing with hundreds of leaflets and thousands of mini-handouts – similar to those seen in the days of the French Resistance – with an image of the murdered teacher on one side. On the other side are the words of teenagers discussing barbarism, their relations with teachers and freedom.
“After his death there was a blackout. There was some verbal support but nothing more. I thought that we had to do something, we had to draw out pupils' views, like an emotional release,” said the teacher, whose aim was to get his students in the 'troisième' year – aged 14 to 15 – to think about the role of school, to collect their reactions, and then to show those views to people in power. That has now been achieved through the production of the 'Don't touch my teacher' brochure which was distributed to the National Assembly's 577 Members of Parliament. It was also given in person to the education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, who did not see fit to send a reply.
However, a year after the attack and the homage machine is now in full swing. On October 8th Gilles Roumieux was invited to Blois in central France to receive a prize for his contribution to secularism at the history festival Les Rendez-vous de l'Histoire. On October 12th he was invited to the National Assembly with his class from last year. This barely-disguised hijacking of the issue by the Assembly came after the teacher had spent long months going around towns and institutions on his own, trying single-handedly to promote the project. “For the trip to Paris I had to pay for the train tickets for all my pupils in advance with my own debit card. That was 2,500 euros. In this project I've managed on my own, I've never had the support of management, apart from the headteacher. Some colleagues are going to get four hours of overtime for work that was done during one Wednesday afternoon. I've had no compensation, nor has the education authority sent one word of compliment to the children,” said the teacher regretfully. Some teachers see this silence as symptomatic of what they consider to be the inertia and double standards of the education authorities.
As evidence of this, teachers point to the way in which the tributes to Samuel Paty took place on November 2nd 2020 after the autumn holidays and just a short time after the murder. Instructions were given from the Ministry of Education for tributes and discussions about the issue to take place on that day. The teachers say they found themselves having to talk about religion, murder and secularism off the cuff during the classroom discussions, without support.
“I was surprised that they asked us to react so quickly,” said the maths teacher at Jean-Baptiste-Dumas secondary school. “Some girls of [North African] origin were afraid to speak. It was their male friends who spoke for them. They told us that people were always having a go at Islam and that it was stigmatising. It is as if these girls didn't feel justified in speaking themselves. As if by expressing their desire not to be stigmatised they'd be suspected of wanting to agree with the killer.” This reaction was particularly widely felt in the mood of suspicion that prevailed after Samuel Paty's murder. What the girls did not know at the time was that their every reaction was being closely scrutinised. “We were asked to pass on the reactions of the pupils during the discussion, during the homage. If a pupil showed a strong reaction we had to pass on the information. That shocked us. What was the goal? We don't know,” said the maths teacher.
There was no feedback. There was a Siberian frostiness.
The woman history teacher at the Daudet middle school to whom Mediapart spoke was already extremely familiar with a watered down version of these secular themes from the EMC civic education classes. So, just three weeks after the attack, and accompanied by a colleague, she felt she would have no problem in tackling these issues with a class that was usually on her wavelength. But though she did not know why, that day this bond was broken. “I tried to speak about it, I gave my lesson on secularism, I tried to give it my all ...but there was nothing. There was no feedback. There was a Siberian frostiness. I wasn't expecting that,” she said.
The only reaction the teacher got was “why?”. She said: “They asked me why we were talking about it, as if it was a non-event. They had the feeling that we were attaching a lot of importance to one teacher, but that when it came to persons of colour or from diverse backgrounds we didn't speak about that.” It was as if the wounds caused by racism and stigmatisation were supposed to find some comfort in this pretend indifference.
But once this “great moment of solitude” had passed, the teacher realised the wider implications of what had happened. “In general, they have trouble realising the seriousness of things,” she said. The teenagers often play down an insult to a teacher or the impact of a fight. “Recently it's become very difficult to debate, but also to make pupils understand that freedom of expression is determined by our duties, or that there are limits, in particular because this issue is very badly handled in the media. For example, for our pupils Éric Zemmour [editor's note, the far-right journalist and polemicist who is considering standing for the presidency in 2022] is already president and they're afraid of that. They asked me: 'Is it true, Miss, that we are going to have to change our first name?'” she said, referring to Zemmour's desire to make it obligatory to give children only French names when they are born.
Many criticise the inertia and hypocrisy of the education service.
With the benefit of a year's perspective the maths teacher at Jean-Baptiste-Dumas secondary school noted: “The institution failed. Macron's national homage was very good but the reaction of [education minister Jean-Michel] Blanquer and of the national education service wasn't up to it.” This view is shared by colleague Laurent Machetto who speaks of “hypocrisy” on the part of the authorities. “Paty was not protected. When you say certain things to management they evade the issue. It's a policy of 'don't make waves'. They never get to the heart of the problem,” said the history teacher.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
“It's like random-access memory … everything crashes and you forget the rest. We were encouraged to go to workshops and some teachers did take it up, but there was no overall action,” added Laurent Machetto. “It's like those announcements about secularism for this new school year [editor's, called 'C’est ça la laïcité' or 'That's what secularism is', the initiative began in September 2021 and included eight posters on the issue of secularism]. I don't see anything concrete, just the poster.” A French teacher at Daudet middle school argues that this kind of inertia can lead to problems “when you face extreme situations. It's then that you realise that you have your backs to the wall. A bit like the army.”
Though there is unanimous support among the staff for Samuel Paty, hardly any of the teachers show caricatures of Muhammad in their classes. “What Paty talked about I talk about, but I don't use caricatures because that would be too difficult to understand,” argues Laurent Machetto at Daudet middle school, who laments the fact that his pupils are sometimes victim of genuine religious “brain washing on social media”.
Indeed, the online world was not just part of the hype around what happened to Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, it played the central role in the tragedy. As well as being singled out for having shown the caricatures, Samuel Paty was also the target of sickening online rumours. In one video posted online a parent of one of his pupils accused the teacher of having circulated child pornography images. The history teacher at Daudet middle school admits she is worried by what is happening online. “Some pupils are close to sectarian groups or are immersed in violence, that's very clear,” she said. “Last year, not long after the attack, I know that a handful of them had looked at photos of fighting or jihadist videos. But I don't know if that was circulating on their networks or if they were going to special sites.”
Crucial work need on pupils' use of social networks
As a general rule, if there is a conflict with a teacher, pupils use the web more and more as their support mechanism. It operates as a kind of bubble of freedom where revenge, mockery and bad jokes are rife, and without too much risk. “Last spring in Alès a teacher was the target of false rumours about their sexual orientation even though he was married to a woman,” explained the history teacher at Daudet. Another teacher was the subject of serious accusations about his behaviour towards female pupils at the middle school. Such allegations rarely go beyond the level of gossip but they have been doing the rounds of the smartphones and the playground with greater force since the end of the first Covid lockdown in 2020. Some teachers feel that in this respect the Ministry of Education has failed to draw all the lessons from the murder of Samuel Paty.
One of these is Gilles Roumieux, from the Jean-Racine middle school, who three months after the murder of Samuel Paty received a threatening message via Facebook. “It was at the time I was starting to talk about our leaflet project in the Midi Libre newspaper. The message said: 'If you carry on …' and was followed by an image of a knife. We flagged this to management but had no feedback,” said the teacher.
A year after the murder of Samuel Paty the verdict of the teaching staff is worrying. But on top of their criticism of the authorities, the teachers have lots of ideas of what could be done: less of a top-down approach in the education service, more projects, and work that is more geared towards tackling pupil's sources of information, fake news or understanding the subjects that dominate air time. The teachers see these as interrelated issues that all form part of the current problem, and are calling for this kind of work to be more clearly incorporated into their timetables. Laurent Machetto, whose middle school continues to miss out on the extra resources that being in a education priority area would bring, does not hide his anger at the current situation. “We're operating on crumbs,” he said. “And since Samuel Paty's death nothing has changed.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter