“He turned towards me and said to me: ‘you’re a history teacher, you’re a history teacher’, he chased me and I took refuge in the establishment,” says this teacher from the Gambetta high school in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), into which a man of Chechen origin on file S burst in, this Friday, October 13, and stabbed to death one of his colleagues, Dominique Bernard, while shouting ” God is great”. Just before, the victim allegedly intervened between the terrorist and his students to protect the latter. Two other people were seriously injured. The national anti-terrorism prosecution has opened an investigation to shed light on the exact circumstances of this tragedy. The deputies observed a minute of silence at the National Assembly, while the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the Minister of National Education Gabriel Attal went there to express their support for the educational teams.
For several hours, emotion has dominated the teaching community which was preparing to commemorate on Monday October 16 the death of Samuel Paty, three years after the assassination of the history and geography professor at the Bois d’Aulne college, in Conflans. -Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines). Three years later, the wound is still raw. The incomprehension and fear still palpable. Even if we cannot deny certain advances, they remain extremely timid. The educational institution is still struggling to learn the lessons of the terrible spiral which led to this fatal outcome and the “no wave” continues in educational establishments and within the rectorates. On the other hand, in recent times, several surveys have shown that self-censorship continues to gain ground in classrooms, temples of knowledge that must be preserved from all political, religious or family pressures. Temporarily suspending one’s possible affiliations and assignments during school time: this is the definition of “secular breathing” often put forward by the philosopher Catherine Kintzler.
But how can we honor this immense and essential task when fear, very legitimate, dominates? When the fear of “offending” leads to approaching certain chapters of SVT, History or Moral and Civic Education with a lump in the stomach? When pressure from certain parents weighs on the way we approach these lessons? When a simple reminder to respect secularism can be taken as a personal, Islamophobic or racist attack and the matter risks being immediately relayed on social networks? So many questions that the educational body has been facing since the famous October 16, 2020, the day when Samuel Paty fell for simply having carried out his work as a teacher. Coming together to fight against this loneliness too often experienced by teachers, reaffirming our unwavering support for them and increasing vigilance when the school is attacked: this must be the response of society as a whole.