On October 16, 2020, teacher Samuel Paty was brutally stabbed and decapitated outside his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris. The 47-year-old history and civics teacher had been subjected to online harassment for over ten days, accused of being an Islamophobe after showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on free speech.
The attack was carried out by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin, who was later shot dead by police. However, it has now emerged that the campaign against Paty was sparked by a lie fabricated by a 13-year-old schoolgirl.
The girl, whose identity remains protected, told her mother that Paty had forced Muslim students to view the cartoons and had excluded her when she complained. In reality, she had not attended the class and no Muslim students were ordered out. She tearfully apologised to Paty's family in a court hearing yesterday.
Her father is now on trial along with several others for orchestrating the hateful smearing of the teacher and soliciting the radical who carried out the murder. The case has shocked France and reignited debates about secularism and free speech.
