Three and a half years after the tragedy, a “denial” still tenacious in the face of the seriousness of the facts. Mickaëlle Paty, the younger sister of the history-geography professor killed on October 16, 2020, deplored Thursday still “little progress” and “awareness” of the tragedy experienced by her brother, murdered as he left his college from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in Yvelines. Invited on BFMTV, she called for a "judgment of the State", urging the government to "take stock of what has happened" and act "so that this can no longer happen", two weeks after having asked her by letter to acknowledge his responsibility in the tragedy.
The teacher's sister first welcomed “a visible improvement” since the death of her brother. The 47-year-old history and geography teacher was beheaded by a young terrorist who accused him of showing caricatures of Mohammed in class. “Since the attack, many teachers, principals and principals have seen their lives put in danger”, but they were able to benefit from a “fairly rapid reaction” from the authorities to “bring them to safety”, she said. estimated. However, she still accuses the State of “wait-and-see behavior” and a “form of denial” after the attack on her brother.
" Latency "
Mickaëlle Paty's lawyer sent a letter to the executive on March 15 requesting "official recognition of the State's responsibility in the occurrence of the attack." “What I'm waiting for is for there to really be a study of what may have happened at the time,” explained the teacher's sister on BFMTV. The government has two months to get back to her, otherwise she says she is ready to file a complaint. She specified that Matignon had told her that he would send her a response to her letter. “We expect proactive behavior, a reaction,” she said, calling on the executive to “study all the flaws that could have led to this attack.”
VIDEO. Students from France pay tribute to Samuel Paty
The professor's sister criticizes the state services in particular for not having protected Samuel Paty and "ignored" his alerts during the days preceding the attack. A long ordeal for the terrified teacher, whose name and place of work had been made public, giving rise to “calls to act with violence” against him on social networks. “Territorial intelligence was able to identify all these elements, there was no failure in the collection of information. But the problem is what do we do with these elements,” insisted Mickaëlle Paty.
“It’s as if there was a latency period, where we wait to see if there is going to be an action”, while it was “totally obvious that it had to be put aside (…) and benefit from protection,” she lamented. She even felt that her brother had died “from abandonment”, criticizing “a lot of cowardice”. A “denial” according to her “much earlier” than the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine attack: “they thought that the school was a sanctuary and that as a result, it could not be threatened”, regretted Mickaëlle Paty.
“You still don’t understand”
The finding is all the more alarming given that a new attack has since mourned the teaching community: French teacher Dominique Bernard was killed during a new attack, this time in Arras, in October 2023. Mickaëlle Paty also returned to the he recent incident that occurred at the Maurice-Ravel high school in Paris, where the principal left his position after being the subject of death threats. He had been accused by a student of having assaulted her after she refused to remove her veil. She particularly deplored that the video of the video testimony of the young girl who accuses the principal, broadcast on social networks, is constantly “spilled” by “activist” accounts despite reports.
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The principal justified his decision “for security reasons”, while the rectorate cited “personal convenience” and an “early departure” to retire “in view of the events which have marked these last weeks”. A way of “misnaming things” to “minimize the situation”, said the sister of Samuel Paty, calling on the Ministry of Education to “state clearly” the facts. “No one is fooled. (…) We say to ourselves:
You still don’t understand
,” she regretted.
On the other hand, she welcomed the complaint for “slanderous complaint” that the government will file against the student, announced by Gabriel Attal, considering that it is “important that the State is there to support the filing of complaints”.