Debating Free Expression in France

"I am moved, and I am relieved. Hearing the word 'guilty' — that's what I needed."

"I spent this week listening to a lot of rewriting of what happened, and it was hard to hear, but now the judge has stated what really happened, and it feels good."

"I think my brother died for nothing, [teachers were still being targeted by violence and threats]."

Gaëlle Paty, Samuel Paty's sister

 

"It's something that really shocks the family."  

"You get the feeling that those in the box are absolutely unwilling to admit any responsibility whatsoever."

"Apologies are pointless, they won't bring Samuel back, but explanations are precious to us. We haven't had many explanations of the facts."

Paty family lawyer Virginie Le Roy

The fallout from Paty’s killing reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm attachment to secularism in public life. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

French teacher Samuel Paty was murdered on October 16, 2020 outside the school where he taught, in a horrific killing that shocked France. At that time, there were protests in many Muslim countries along with online incitement for violence to target France and Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French newspaper which had republished the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad several weeks before Paty's death, to mark the trial opening of the deadly 2015 attacks on the newspaper's newsroom by Islamic jihadists.

Mr. Paty had thought he would discuss the issue with his students in the classroom, using a cartoon of the Prophet as an illustration and to focus on how a well-balanced society has a respect for freedom of speech, however insulting it may appear to some. That in a free society people have the right to speak as they see fit, and to say what they believe as long as that speech is not used to promote hatred and violence. What his lesson for the day did, however, was to inflame already-heightened social unrest.

One of his students went home to tell her father how her teacher had insulted her and assaulted her belief in Islam's Prophet Mohammad by mocking the religion and its Prophet. Her father began an online agitation promoting vengeance against the teacher, inciting young Muslim men to conspire to take revenge against an unforgivable blasphemy. The trial of eight co-conspirators to the murder concluded on Friday at France's anti-terrorism court when those convicted of involvement in Samuel Paty's beheading were sentenced.

The actual assailant, an 18-year-old Chechen Russian had been shot to death by police at the time of the murder. The eight who were convicted on terrorism charges stood accused of providing assistance to the perpetrator of the grisly killing; among them others charged and convicted of organizing a hate campaign that led to the murder of Samuel Paty. Central Paris's 540-seat special terrorism court was packed for the verdict, the atmosphere charged.

 

It was clear from some of the comments of those present, the families of the convicted, that remorse over the event for many was completely absent. Women whose sons were sentenced to prison were distraught and disbelieving over the sentences; their sons had done nothing wrong. From among them gasps were emitted as the lead justice delivered the sentences. Cries, shouts and mocking clapping erupted, leading the judge to pause repeatedly and call for order.

 

Francis Szpiner, a French lawyer representing Samuel Paty' son, speaks to the press on Dec. 20, 2024, at the Paris Special Assize Court after the verdict in the case against eight people charged in connection with the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty in 2020.  STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images

Some of the more obstreperous were led away by police. Over 50 police officers kept order throughout the tense session. Sentences ranging from 18 months of suspended imprisonment to 16 years in prison as had been requested by prosecutors. The defendants included friends of the assailant -- Abdoullakh Anzorov -- who had aided in procuring weapons for the attack. The father of the schoolgirl whose lies had begun the fatal spiral of events included. 

When the national anti-terrorism prosecutor asked the court to downgrade offences of four of the eight defendants, the Paty family expressed their ire: "It's more than a disappointment. In a moment like this, it feels like one is fighting for nothing", said Paty's sister Mickaelle. The charge of complicity in favour of a lower charge of association with a terrorist enterprise was dropped against the two  young men accused of providing logistical support to the killer.

The father of the student whose false account of Paty's use of the caricatures triggered a wave of social media posts targeting the middle-school teacher was among those sentenced. Brahim Chnina was given 13 years in prison for criminal terrorist association. Chnina had published videos falsely accusing the teacher of disciplining his daughter for complaining about the class, naming Paty and identifying his school. Essentially making him a target for murder.

Founder of a hardline Islamist organization, Abdelhakim Sefrioui received a 15-year sentence. Both Sefrioui and Chnina were found guilty of inciting hatred against Paty.Two associates of Paty's killer were also convicted. Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov were sentenced to 16 years in prison for complicity in a terrorist killing. Both had denied wrongdoing.

French high-school teacher Samuel Paty (pictured in centre) was murdered by a radicalised Islamist teenager in 2020   AFP