In France, thousands of people took to the streets to commemorate Samuel Patit, a history teacher. He was killed for showing his students the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
People gather in the central squares of different cities in France: Paris, Strasbourg, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Toulouse. Individuals as well as political parties, social organisations and trade unions join the action.
Around 5000 people have gathered near the Toulouse Capitol. There are many teachers among them. They put the inscription “I am a teacher” on their chest and held the signs “I am a teacher, I defend freedom of speech” and “Society in danger”.
People honoured the memory of the killed teacher with a minute of silence. In Paris, Jean Castex, Minister of the Interior of France, and Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of the city, attended the event.
“You will not scare us. We are not afraid. You will not disengage us. We are France”, – Castex wrote on Twitter.
Let us remind you that in the evening of 16 October, a college teacher’s head was cut off on the street in Conflant- Saint Honorin near Paris. The attacker was shot and killed by the police when he refused to surrender.
The victim of the attack was a history and geography teacher who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a free speech class.
According to the French edition of La Parisien, the attacker posted a photo with the teacher’s head severed in his Twitter account. Eyewitnesses reported that he shouted “Allah the Akbar”.