France: Trial starts over beheading of teacher Samuel Paty

Four years ago, the assassination of French history teacher Samuel Paty sent shock waves across France and abroad.

Late on the Friday afternoon of October 16, 2020, an 18-year-old Chechen stabbed and beheaded 47-year-old Paty in front of his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a northwestern suburb of Paris. The 18-year-old was killed by police shortly after the attack.

Paty had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class during a lesson on freedom of expression. Those cartoons had been published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and resulted in the terror attacks on the publication's offices in January 2015 in which 12 people were killed. The two attackers had claimed to "avenge the prophet" — just like Paty's assassin.

Last year, a Paris court handed down prison sentences of up to two years to six teenagers in connection with the Paty attack. Four of them received suspended sentences.

Now, eight adults are standing trial, two of whom are accused of complicity in the murder.

Two men could receive a life sentence, which in France means 30 years behind bars. They are suspected of being accomplices of the assassin, helping him to buy weapons or driving him to the murder scene.

Five other men and one woman stand accused of belonging to a terrorist group and could also face up to 30 years in prison. They are suspected of having encouraged the attacker, praising his crime or of having made plans to leave for Syria to join the so-called Islamic State terror group.

The second group includes the father of the then 13-year-old girl who is alleged to have untruthfully told her father that Paty had asked her and other Muslim pupils to leave the classroom before showing the controversial cartoons. However, she hadn't attended the class and was reportedly just looking for an excuse for having been temporarily excluded from school for an unrelated reason.

But her father was furious and triggered an online hate campaign which drew the attacker's attention to Paty.

Lawyer says trial is 'symbolic'

Lawyer Antoine Casubolo Ferro thinks the adults' court case is the "real Paty trial," and is hoping for harsh sentences.

He represents 12 colleagues of Paty, a receptionist at the school, plus the French Association for the Victims of Terror Attacks, AFVT, who are civil plaintiffs in the case.

"The whole of France needs this trial, as it triggers the memory of an attack on something symbolic," Casubolo Ferro told DW. "[The assailant] attacked one of our history teachers, who stood for our education system, our values, our secularism."

According to France's definition of secularism — the separation of church and state — religious symbols are banned at school. This concept defined as "laïcité" in France is closely linked to the freedom of expression. Blasphemy has not been an offense in France since 1881.

But Vincent Brengarth isn't convinced symbolic sentences are effective. The lawyer represents a man who is known to the French secret services as an Islamist activist. Together with the young girl's father, the man filmed a video in front of Paty's school and separately released another one in which he claimed Paty had insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

"Our courts should judge this case based on our laws and not become a thought police," Brengarth told DW. "The case file shows that the attacker never saw my client's video — he had already chosen his target when it was published."

Brengarth added that France should be careful not to create a dangerous precedent.

"During this court case, a person could for the first time be convicted for being part of a terror group just because he has different values," said Brengarth.

Time to 'take stock' of secularism rules

Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor, a professor of media, politics and religion at Montpellier University Paul-Valery, thinks the court case could be an occasion to "take stock" of France's legislative anti-terror arsenal.

"There have been numerous new anti-terror laws since the early 2000s and one on secularism that came into effect in 2021," she said. "That has, for example, created the role of advisers on secularism and set stricter rules as to who finances religious groups.

"But the French are hardly aware of how their government is taking terror risks into account. Polls show that religious terrorism is still among their biggest worries," she added. "That's also because most attacks are no longer carried out by groups, but rather by lone wolves, who are more difficult to detect in advance."

The law on secularism that came into effect in 2021 also includes a "Paty paragraph:" Threatening teachers is punishable with up to three years in prison and a €45,000 ($48,000) fine. The government has also promised to better protect teachers and offer specific training modules on secularism.

Nonetheless, French media regularly report on pupils who act against the principles of secularism. And in October last year, an Islamist terrorist killed French language teacher Dominique Bernard in the northern town of Arras.

Bataclan survivor hopes trial will have positive effect

Christophe Naudin, a history teacher at a secondary school in the Parisian suburb of Arcueil, feels left behind by the government.

"We had one half-day training on secularism since the attack, that's all — meanwhile, the government just announced another 4,000 job cuts in the school system," he said.

"Commemorations for Samuel Paty have an element of hypocrisy — they remind us of the fact that we're potential targets," he said.

Naudin identifies strongly with Paty, not just as a history teacher. He's a survivor of the November 2015 terror attack at the Bataclan music hall, during which three terrorists killed 90 people. The assault was part of a series of attacks, also on bars and a football stadium, in which around 130 people were killed.

He hopes the court case will have an effect on how certain people think and act.

For instance, he feels the media should report extensively on the trial and highlight the lies, the role played by social media and by some parents, but also the authorities who didn't pick up on the warnings before "we reached this point," he said.

A verdict is expected on December 20.

Edited by: Rob Mudge