The Bois d’Aulne college, located in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in Yvelines, is about to change its name to pay tribute to Samuel Paty, the history and geography teacher murdered in October 2020.
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Rename the Bois d’Aulne college after Samuel Paty to pay tribute to the murdered teacher was not a given. It took four years for the decision to mature. This highly symbolic name change has just been voted on by a large majority of the establishment’s board of directors.
However, until then, parents, students and teachers were not in favour of it, due to the trauma that was still very present. But, as the last generation of middle school students who were able to know Samuel Paty entered high school, the choice finally became obvious.
Renaming Samuel Paty College is much more than just a name change. It is a strong gesture that demonstrates the importance of education and freedom of expression, values for which Samuel Paty lost his life. Laurent Brosse, the mayor of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, welcomed the initiative. The name change should be implemented quickly, after its validation at the municipal and departmental levels.
A strong symbol to fight against obscurantism
” It is essential to honour the memory of Samuel Paty, it was a wish of the family, and to fight against obscurantism. “, welcomed Corinne Grootaert, president of the FCPE of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, while some parents of pupils regret the lack of consideration of the words of the children affirming that they are the ” great forgotten ” since the murder of their teacher four years ago.
On October 16, 2020, the history and geography teacher was stabbed and then decapitated near his middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the Yvelines, by a Russian refugee of Chechen origin, killed shortly after by the police. The 18-year-old man, radicalized, accused him of having shown caricatures of Mohammed in class.
Six middle school students have already been sentenced to sentences ranging from 14 months in prison, suspended, to six months in prison – with electronic monitoring – on December 9, 2023 for their involvement in the assassination. Eight adults indicted will be tried before the special assize court in Paris from November 12 to December 20, 2024. Samuel Paty’s sister, for her part, has taken the matter to the administrative courts to have the State recognized as responsible for this assassination. She accuses the Ministries of the Interior and National Education of failure to assist a person in danger and failure to prevent a crime..