French Values, Islamofascist Response

Candles are lit at a makeshift memorial as people gather to pay homage to Samuel Paty, the French teacher who was beheaded on the streets of the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, as part of a national tribute, in Nice, France, October 21, 2020. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo

"It’s as if the students are the mouthpiece for thinking that does not come from them ... but from people who want to impose a religious identity that keeps getting a little stronger."

Delphone Girard, French teacher since 2004 

"I self-censored a lot on issues around laicite. I felt a real hatred for French values."

"[After the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack] We held a minute's silence[in her class] and I moved on. I was cowardly."

Anonymous High School teacher

Secularism has a long history in Quebec dating from 1905, following anticlerical differences with the Catholic Church. It was then enshrined in French law, and the nation's national curriculum was created to provide the framework for the new education system. In its guidance to teachers, they are directed to websites recommending appropriate teaching materials and lesson plans. 

Samuel Paty, threatened with a fatwa  EPA

For lessons for 13-year-olds in Middle School on freedom of expression, such as the one taught by history teacher Samuel Paty, one common suggestion is the Charlie Hebdo satirical cartoons, to give context to the lesson of free speech. And it was just those very cartoons that set off a maelstrom of heated demands from some of the parents of his pupils in the middle class area of Paris where Mr. Paty's school was located.

After that class concluded, where he had beforehand suggested to his Muslim students that they were free to absent themselves from the class if they felt they would be upset over the use of the cartoons, parents of the students were informed of what had transpired, and one in particular began a campaign of lobbying the school administration for the teacher's immediate dismissal. The parent also produced a video condemning and identifying the teacher.

Mr. Paty was also the recipient of violent threats. All of which culminated in a young refugee of 18 of ethnic Chechen heritage, born in Moscow, deciding to avenge the Prophet Mohammad for the unforgivable act of insulting the divine nature of the prophet by parodying his message of sacred divinity. By beheading the teacher, his assailant satisfied himself that he had dispatched his duty to Islam.

Boasting of his success by sending a grisly, macabre photograph of the slain man with a message of triumphant satisfaction to French President Emmanuel Macron, the supreme infidel of France, the country that had granted the Russian-Chechen family haven. Some teachers in France admit to their level of intimidation leading them to censor what they say and do in their classes in a country where the given name 'Mohammad' is common among Muslim families.

 

The scene of the killing has been sealed off and investigation is under way   Getty Images

 

From primary school teachers to high school teachers, a wary mindset has prevailed for decades, and some profess to not having been entirely surprised that one of their own had been violently butchered by an enraged Muslim Islamofascist. Primary school teachers, fearful of giving offence to Muslim children refrain from reading the classic tale of the Three Little Pigs, lest a backlash ensue. Religious satire in particular gets a wide pass from history teachers.

But not, it was seen in a vicious Muslim community reaction, from the mosques and societies and groups enshrining Muslim values above those of the country they are citizens in, when one French history teacher chose to use the Prophet-mocking cartoons as a prop to help get his message across that in France, nothing is particularly sacred, and certainly not extreme religious values in a country that cultivates its secular character. 

 

History teacher Maxime Reppert, resorted to reason when expressing his opinion, a quality of intelligent perspective utterly absent from the emotions that belief in the almighty instills in the  faithful, when he declared: "Caricatures are not Mein Kampf. They are not a call to incite hate." But under Sharia law and in the minds of the fundamentalist Muslim population they are just that, and more.

“Should I bring this up with my students when they return, with a caricature of the Prophet to hand? [Silence, she continued, might be worse]."

"Today I am afraid. But even more so of what could become of such horrors if we let this fear interfere in the debate."

French art teacher, name withheld

That terrifying fear of consequences is called terrorism.

 

Flowers have been left at the school where the murdered man taught   Getty Images