RUTHFULLY YOURS

May 16, 2023. The French examining magistrates in charge of the case of the murder of Samuel Paty, a high school teacher savagely beheaded on October 16, 2020 in Conflans Sainte Honorine, a small city in the suburbs of Paris where he taught, reveal the list of those they have decided to indict.

The list of 14 people does not include the murderer, Abdullakh Anzorov: he was shot dead by police. Prior to Paty’s murder, his name was in the database of the Central Office for the Fight against Crime, but he had not been placed under police surveillance. He was a Chechen Muslim, age 18, with refugee status in France, and had sought to join Islamic terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Two young French radicalized Muslims, Azim Epsirkhanov and Naïm Boudaoud, had accompanied him to a store where he bought a hunting knife to cut off his victim’s head. Both men told the investigators that they knew what Abdullakh Anzorov wanted to do and that they approved of it. They are being prosecuted for “criminal association”. Their prison sentence will not exceed 10 years; they will be eligible for release after seven or eight years — dismayingly little.

Two other men, indicted for “incitement to murder,” are Brahim Chnina, the father of Zohra, a schoolgirl who lied about what Samuel Paty had said in a class on secularism and tolerance, and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a man who posted videos on social networks that showed Chnina calling to kill Paty.

Chnina admitted to investigators not only that his daughter had lied, but that she had told him she had not even attended Paty’s class. Even though Chnina quickly learned that his daughter had invented the story, he nevertheless continued to spread her lie. He had instigated the murder of a teacher while knowing that his accusation was based on a falsehood. Brahim Chnina and Abdelhakim Sefrioui will probably receive relatively light prison sentences, four to five years at most. Priscilla Mangel, a young woman who converted to Islam, is also being prosecuted for incitement to murder: she had posted messages on social networks saying, “Anyone who insults the Prophet deserves death” and pointing to Paty.

Several Muslim adolescents, aged 14 and 15 when they studied at the high school where Paty taught, admitted to having pointed out Paty to Abdullah Anzorov while knowing that Anzorov wanted to kill him. According to the investigators, none of them expressed any remorse. They are being prosecuted for “non-denunciation of a criminal” – failing to expose an imminent crime. They risk no punishment, just reprimands and the obligation to take courses teaching secularism and tolerance — exactly what Paty had taught.

Two trials will take place in 2024, one for the adults, the other for the minors.

The shock is the lightness of the penalties for murder. The French justice system is extremely lenient: for being directly complicit in a premeditated murder, or inciting people to commit murder, an adult will spend a few years in prison; if you are 14 or 15, merely simple reprimands and compulsory courses. Being in a police database does not require monitoring by police services or cause anyone to lose his refugee status.

Five days after Paty was murdered, French President Emmanuel Macron paid a solemn tribute to him: “Samuel Paty was killed because the Islamists want our future and they know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it”.

Since then, Islamism has gained ground in France, particularly in high schools. Teachers today are not “quiet heroes”: all investigations show they are afraid, and practice self-censorship. For 10 years, teachers have not taught about the Holocaust. They have also given up on addressing the subjects that led to Paty’s murder: secularism, tolerance and the right to criticize religions.

Throughout France, Muslim students openly threaten teachers by telling them that they are “risking a Samuel Paty“. In a recent book, Ces petits renoncements qui tuent (“These little disavowals that kill”), journalist Carine Azzopardi gave the floor to a teacher who describes his own experience as well as that of many of his colleagues. Many topics can no longer be addressed in a classroom. In geography lessons, saying that the earth is round has become dangerous: many Muslim students say that Islam teaches that the earth is flat. In biology class, discussing evolution or Charles Darwin is equally unsafe.

Teachers have been resigning in increasing numbers, and recruiting new ones has become a problem. The number of people registered for the annual French high school teacher recruitment exam has fallen by more than 30% from January 2008 to January 2020. In the autumn of 2022, thousands of high school teaching positions were vacant; the French government had to recruit people who lacked the required diplomas.

Recently, anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Backler in a book called Le frérisme et ses Réseaux, l’Enquête (“The Brotherhood and its Networks: The Survey”), explained in detail the way the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements in France use social media networks and mosques to incite Muslim children and adolescents to challenge the education provided in high schools to push the French educational system to submit to their vision of Islam.

The French authorities are aware of what is happening, but do nothing. Apparently, government officials are afraid, too, and do not want to take any risks. They know that more than 750 no-go zones exist in the country, and that riots frequently erupt. Demonstrations against the government’s pension reform took place throughout the spring of 2023 in the main cities of the country. Most ended in violence by young people from no-go zones who burned cars and looted shops.

On September 29, 2020, two weeks before Paty’s murder, Macron gave a speech in which he denounced the rise of the Islamist threat as well as the emergence of entirely Muslim neighborhoods that separate themselves from the rest of French society. He said he wanted the National Assembly to pass a law to combat what he called “Islamic separatism“. French Muslim organizations immediately protested.

In several Muslim countries, demonstrations against France also sprang up. Macron quickly sent Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to Cairo to meet Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of the al-Azhar Mosque, presumably to find a way to calm the situation down. After the meeting, Le Drian announced that he was eager both to clear up any misunderstandings, and that France was imbued with a “profound respect” for the Muslim religion.

Macron’s proposed law, called the “Law confirming respect for the principles of the Republic“, has since been rewritten. All references to Islam and Islamism have been removed from the text. Passed on August 24, 2021, it does currently not contain any measure likely to combat the Islamist danger. A paragraph speaks of the need to “protect teachers”, but teachers are still not protected. The Islamist movements in French high schools continue to exist.

During the 2022presidential election , only one candidate, Éric Zemmour, spoke of the vulnerable situation in which the country now finds itself — the increasingly disturbing Islamic pressure in French educational institutions and the threats that weigh on teachers. He spoke of the Muslim neighborhoods in France from which non-Muslim have fled and where police no longer go. He spoke of the escalating number of attacks by gangs of young Muslims on non-Muslims. He denounced the laxity of French justice towards murderers and terrorists, and said that if nothing changes, there will undoubtedly be other teachers murdered. He received seven percent of the vote.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon — a far-left candidate who, in November 2019, was one of the organizers of a “march against Islamophobia” that ended with shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” (“Allah is the greatest!”) — received the support of the main French Islamic organizations and 21.95% of the vote. He won more than 34% of the vote among voters aged 18 to 24, and 69% of the vote of French Muslims.

The proportion of Muslims within the French population continues to grow. About 400,000 legal immigrants arrive in France from the Muslim world every year, according to the latest informati0on available. These do not include the thousands who arrive illegally. In 2016, France’s population consisted of 8.8% Muslims and was the main Muslim country in Europe.

A Pew Research Center study in 2017 showed that, taking into account immigration and the birth rate, the number of Muslims in France would double to about 18% by 2050 — possibly even higher. Polls show that French Muslims are integrating less and less, and that non-integration is particularly high among young Muslims. A study in September 2020 showed that 74% of French Muslims under the age of 25 placed Sharia above the laws of the republic. The figure for Muslims over the age of 35 was considerably lower: 25%. Another study published a year later showed that two-thirds of Muslim high school students also placed Sharia above the laws of the Republic. The same survey showed that 9% of young Muslims said they “share the motivations” of Paty’s murderer.

A recently published book by journalist Stephane Simon, Les derniers jours de Samuel Paty (“The Last Days of Samuel Paty”), provides insights into the decaying situation overtaking France. Simon conducted an investigation detailing everything that happened during the eleven days between the moment Paty taught a class on secularism and the moment he was murdered. No teacher from the high school where he taught supported him: instead, they distanced themselves from him. Some accused him of putting them in danger. The Ministry of Education also blamed him, for having offended the sensibilities of Muslim students.

The police took note of the threats but offered Paty no protection. Even though Anzorov’s name was in a police database, and even though the police and Paty’s colleagues knew he was threatened, Anzorov was able to spend hours in front of the high school where Paty taught. Anzorov spoke with students and asked them to point out Paty when the school day was over and the teachers were going home. Anzorov chased Paty through the streets, stabbed him, slit his throat, beheaded him, photographed himself next to the severed head, and posted the photos on social media networks around the world.

Almost an hour went by between when Anzorov murdered Paty and when he was shot dead by the police officers trying to arrest him. Motorists passed by the body and the head of Samuel Paty but no one reacted, no one called the police.

The day of his murder, Paty had placed a hammer in his satchel to defend himself in the event of an attack, but he did not have time to use it. Messages calling for the death of Samuel Paty had begun to circulate on social media from the evening of October 16, 2020, and continued with impunity until the day he was murdered.

Six days after the beheading, columnist Ivan Rioufol wrote:

“Sleepwalking leaders must wake up to unleashed Islam. Otherwise, the French will have no choice but submission or civil war: those who refuse to comply with the prohibitions of Islamofascism will only be able to count on their own forces to resist.”

He could write the same warning today.

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.