Samuel Paty’s murder: Senate committee recommendations to ‘avoid further tragedies’

The beheading of Samuel Paty on October 16, 2020 created a national earthquake effect. The violence committed against this 47-year-old history and geography teacher, as well as the nature of the republican symbols, struck a blow: school, teachers, secularism.

Two and a half years later, in May last year, the sister of the murdered professor, Mikaëlle Paty, decided to write directly to the President of the Senate, Gerard Larcher, asking for the creation of a commission of inquiry. In order to identify the “problems” that led to the death of his brother.

“Like anyone else, I was not prepared to endure the brutality of a terrorist attack, much less to hear my mother screaming to me that my brother had been beheaded,” she described requesting information. questions “to establish the shortcomings of this drama and try to close the gaps.”

The wish is formulated implicitly: never again. The Luxembourg Palace voted to create a similar commission next month to study “the issue of accountability and combating pressure, threats and attacks against teachers.” It officially starts in June 2023.

After several months of investigation, particularly influenced by the terrorist murder of another teacher, Dominique Bernard in Arras on October 13-45, hearings and several visits to educational institutions, Senators François-Noël Buffet and Laurent Lafon, co-rapporteurs, presented their findings and recommendations this Wednesday , March, 6.

Confirm the school’s authority

“Act to avoid further tragedies,” the report’s authors unanimously advocate, making 38 recommendations, “to protect the school, as well as all the staff who work there, and restore the authority of the institution.”

Firstly, it is a matter of “protecting and promoting secularism in education”; In particular, we are talking about extending the ban on wearing ostentatious religious symbols “to any activity organized by an educational institution,” including during extracurricular hours.

The report also recommends better preparation of teaching staff to face possible challenges in their teaching. This is despite the fact that the educational community has often expressed its loneliness in the face of these difficult situations.

“Reassert the authority” of the school by strengthening communication with parents, as well as extending the existing criminal penalties for failure to comply with attendance obligations to “repeated failure to comply with the rules of operation” of the institution. One of the key measures of these recommendations.

Better support for teachers and school leaders

Senators also want to improve institutional security, as well as communication with police and judicial institutions. And push for needed improved support from facility leaders or teachers to systematically report incidents and better address them.

A recommendation that resonates directly in the news following the opening last week by the Paris prosecutor’s office of an investigation into cyberstalking against the principal of the Maurice-Ravel high school in Paris. The latter received death threats after he reminded students of the obligation to remove their burqas in the institution.

Education Minister Nicole Belloube also went there to assure him of government support. “Once we became aware of these facts, we did respond by forming a protective shield around the establishment and its employees,” she said.

Seven out of ten French people express their commitment to secularism

The findings of this report are supported by a parallel study commissioned by the Senate on French attitudes to the concept of secularism.

If Gérard Larcher says that he is “pleasantly surprised by the French commitment to secularism” (70% of respondents say they are attached to it), this is not always well understood by everyone, especially young people aged 18 to 24, and most Some French respondents believe that in general he is not respected enough.

In an interview with Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui in France, the head of the Senate calls on Gabriel Attal, like Emmanuel Macron, to accept the Senate’s proposals on schools. “This is a national priority because school is a national priority,” he says, reiterating that he wants to “protect living together.” In addition to the partisan divisions. And make sure the school never has to mourn Samuel Paty or Dominique Bernard again.