Will there one day be a public college in Charente-Maritime that bears the name of Samuel Paty, professor of history, geography and moral and civic education murdered on October 10, 2020 in Yvelines for teaching fourth grade students? about secularism and freedom of expression?
Following this brutal Islamist attack, Olivier Falorni, Member of Parliament for Charente-Maritime, publicly suggested…
Will there one day be a public college in Charente-Maritime that bears the name of Samuel Paty, professor of history, geography and moral and civic education murdered on October 10, 2020 in Yvelines for teaching fourth grade students? about secularism and freedom of expression?
The day after this brutal Islamist attack, Olivier Falorni, MP for Charente-Maritime, publicly proposed to Jean-Michel Blanquer that every department should have a Samuel Paty college. The Minister of Education signed up to the proposal.
I haven’t heard of a college that wants to adopt the name Samuel Paty,” suggests the president of the faculty council
Three and a half years later, Charente-Maritime still has none. Although there are 11 colleges whose name is not associated with that of a personality, including Les Salières in Saint-Martin-de-Ré.
A few days ago, Didier Guyon, the opposition elected representative from Sainte-Marie-de-Ré, took advantage of the presence on the island of Ré of Sylvia Marcilly, president of the Council of the Ministry (the institution responsible for universities) to ask this subject. “I have not heard of a college that wants to take the name of Samuel Paty…” the president replied.
When asked, the rectorate of the academy referred to the departments of the council of the department, which confirmed. No establishment has stepped forward to adopt the name of the unfortunate teacher killed for doing the job the Republic expected him to do.
Salles-sur-Mer voted
So nothing has been done since the drama of 2020? Not quite. From June 24, 2021, the multi-purpose room of the Cozes les Vieilles vignes dormitory is officially named after Samuel Paty at the initiative of the director Corinne Machala. Unveiled that day in a public ceremony involving students, the plaque reads: “Samuel Paty, Professor Murdered October 10, 2020 for Teaching Free Speech”.
In Salles-sur-Mer, in the La Rochelle area, a discreet street sign indicates that the kindergarten parking lot is now called Place Samuel-Paty.
Thomas Mankowski
The municipality of Salles-sur-Mer also took the initiative: it named the kindergarten parking lot Place Samuel-Paty. It was the 4th of July last year. However, only the name of the teacher is shown on the plaque marking the place.
After the meeting, the village council voted unanimously. The city of Aytré announced last October that it was going to ask the teacher’s family for permission to put their name on one of those streets at the start of the 2024 school year. No location has yet been determined, the communications department said. .
What do teachers think?
On the teachers’ side, more than the name of the institution, they believe that the debate should focus mainly on the lessons learned from the assassination of Samuel Paty. “Where is the protection of personnel behind the honor? asks Jérôme Churlaud, professor of mathematics at Marc-Chagall College in Dompierre-sur-Mer and secretary of the FO department. With regard to current politics, this is of course not the primary interest of the state, which is more concerned with saving money. » Opinion shared by Pascal Gandemer, FSU Department Secretary. “We can name dormitories or rooms, if nothing is done to revalue the teaching profession, in terms of remuneration, but also remuneration, we will not move forward. We simply need to reassert the principle of secularism and provide ourselves with the means to enforce it through recruitment and scheduling. » And the latter emphasizes that radical Islam is not the only danger to be feared, taking as evidence a group of parents from Saint-Etienne who oppose “sex education” and pass on false information.
Frederic Zabalza