French middle and high schools will be observing a minute of silence Monday to commemorate Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, two teachers murdered during jihadist attacks in 2020 and 2023.
Teachers are free to hold the moment of silence when they want on Monday, according to the Education Ministry, which also said they could spend time during the week to "analyse and reflect with students" however they see fit.
Bernard was stabbed to death in Arras, in northern France, las year by a former student of Chechen origin, who was on France's terror watch list.
Paty, a history teacher, was stabbed, then beheaded by Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin three years earlier, on 16 October 2020, near his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a western Paris suburb.
The 18-year-old radicalised Muslim, criticised Paty for showing caricatures of the Mohammed in class.
“Paying homage to [the teachers] is to keep their memories alive,” the Education Ministry said Monday on X.
Ceremonies
On Friday, the new Education Minister Anne Genetet said that teachers are free to evoke the anniversary of the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel.
“They have the educational resources at their disposal,” she said on RTL.
Genetet and several ministers were in Arras Sunday for a ceremony to mark the one-year anniversary of Bernard's murder.
Later Monday she and Prime Minister Michel Barnier are expected to attend a ceremony in honour of Paty at his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, which is soon to be renamed in his honour.
(with AFP)
