Two teachers murdered in October, three years apart. Samuel Paty in 2020, Dominique Bernard a year ago. Two victims of radicalized Islamists whose death marked the entire body of national education, from teachers to students, and more broadly all of society. To remember and pay tribute to them, a minute of silence will be observed on Monday in middle and high schools in France, with the ambition to “continue” to “fight against ignorance and fanaticism”.
Visit by Michel Barnier
The day after a ceremony which brought together more than two thousand people and several ministers in Arras for a tribute to Dominique Bernard, a French teacher killed by a radicalized former student, Michel Barnier is expected Monday afternoon at the Bois d’college. Aulne, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), where Samuel Paty taught.
The Prime Minister will be accompanied by his Minister of Education Anne Genetet in this Ile-de-France establishment still deeply marked by the memory of this history and geography professor murdered by a radicalized Islamist on October 16, 2020. The college should also soon be renamed after Samuel Paty.
Time for reflection and analysis
“Three years apart, almost to the day, two teachers died at the hands of Islamist terrorists. They taught French history, knowledge of the world, and a love of our language. They transmitted to their students the taste for learning and the spirit of citizenship,” Michel Barnier underlined Sunday in a message on X. “We will not forget them. And we will do everything we can to protect our teachers and continue with them to fight against ignorance and fanaticism,” added the Prime Minister.
“During the week, a time of analysis and reflection with the students can also be organized, the duration and content of which will also be left to the choice of the teams according to their respective situations,” he specified, seeing in this time of homage a way of “transmitting the values” that the two teachers embody.
Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the leading union in secondary education, considers it “essential that the school comes together around a time of tribute, to put words to what is still a great pain”.
