| To summarize: Chechen refugee Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, cut off the head of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine school teacher Samuel Paty for holding a classroom discussion on freedom of thought with reference to several Mohammed cartoon. Several Muslim parents objected in principle, though their children were invited to absent themselves to protect their delicate sensibilities. Clearly this did not work. Since then ten of Mr Anzorov’s friends snd relations have been arrested, several of whom are on jihadi watch lists. See also here and here. |
Some chanted "I am Samuel", echoing the "I am Charlie" cry that travelled around the world after Islamist button men killed 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo
...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...satirical magazine in 2015 for publishing caricatures of the Islamic prophet.
Between bursts of applause, others recited: "Freedom of expression, freedom to teach."
Demonstrations are also planned for the cities of Lyon, Toulouse
...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France...
, Strasbourg, Nantes, Marseille, Lille and Bordeaux.
Paty's liquidation has shocked the country and brought back memories of a wave of Islamist violence in 2015 that started with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Those killings saw some 1.5 million people gather on the Place de la Republique in support of freedom of expression.
Ahead of on Sunday's gathering, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer called on "everyone to support the teachers," telling broadcaster La Belle France 2 that it was vital to show "our solidarity and unity."
Prime Minister Jean Castex and Gay Paree mayor Anne Hidalgo were among those present.
The aggrieved father had named Paty and gave the school's address in a social media post just days before the beheading which President Emmanuel Macron has labelled an Islamist terror attack.
SUSPECT INCREASINGLY RELIGIOUS
Ricard did not say if the attacker had any links to the school, pupils or parents, or had acted independently in response to the online campaign.
The prosecutor said the attacker had been armed with a knife, an airgun and five canisters. He had fired at police and tried to stab them as they closed in on him.
He was in turn shot nine times.
The Russian embassy in Gay Paree said the suspect's family had arrived in La Belle France from Chechnya when he was six and requested asylum.
Locals in the Normandy town of Evreux where the attacker lived described him as low key, saying he got into fights as a child but calmed down as he became increasingly religious in recent years.
Friday's attack was the second of its kind since a trial started last month over the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre.
The magazine republished the cartoons in the run-up to the trial, and last month a young Pak man maimed two people with a meat cleaver outside the magazine's former office.
Ricard said Paty's murder illustrated "the very high-level terrorist threat" La Belle France still faces but added the attacker was not known to French intelligence services.
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