Twelve million pupils returned to school in France yesterday for the first time since an Islamist extremist beheaded teacher Samuel Paty, who had used cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed in a class on freedom of expression.
Schools held a minute’s silence in honor of Paty at 11am and teachers reminded pupils of their rights and duties in a “free democracy.”
Paty was murdered in a middle-class Paris suburb on the eve of a two-week holiday, which French President Emmanuel Macron cast as an attack on French values and the Republic itself.
Photo: AP
France is at its highest level of security after further attacks, including in a church in Nice and against a preacher in Lyon, since Paty’s killing, deploying thousands of soldiers to protect places of worship and schools.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex and Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer paid their respects alongside staff at the Le Bois d’Aulne college where Paty taught.
The high school opened to teachers yesterday, but was keeping its doors closed to students until today.
Photo: Reuters
Macron has described Paty as a “quiet hero” dedicated to instilling core French values of freedom of belief and expression in his students.
Teachers across France were scheduled read a letter written to teachers by Jean Jaures in which the 19th century political figure sets out their role in nurturing young citizens.
“They will be citizens and they must know what a free democracy is, what rights confers on them, what duties the sovereignty of the nation imposes on them,” Jaures wrote.
Teachers were also urged to teach the country’s children to “know France, its geography and its history, its body and its soul.”
In Germany and the Netherlands, many schools were also paying tribute to Paty.
“We can send a sign of solidarity with those teachers who are committed to democratic coexistence,” German Senator Sandra Sheeres, who heads the Senate’s Department of Education, Youth and Family, wrote in a message to Berlin schools asking them to participate.
Scheeres also asked those participating to explain the background to their students to make them aware of “tolerance and solidarity as well as against violence and extremism.”
The Dutch education ministers asked schools, colleges and universities to find ways to express their support.
“The Netherlands stands squarely behind teachers and the constitutional freedom of expression,” ministers Arie Slob and Ingrid van Engelshoven wrote.
Additional reporting by AP
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS