© AFP / Thomas CoexA poster of Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France, on November 3, 2020.
According to France Bleu radio, the student initially made the comments on November 2, more than two weeks after Paty was killed.
The students had just come back from holidays to one of the schools in the town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz in southwestern France, near the Spanish border. After observing a moment of silence, a discussion was held in class. One of the teenagers shocked everyone by saying that Paty's brutal murder was "deserved."
A teacher asked the student to explain what he meant. The student replied that "no one has the right to make fun of religion," and that "the beheading was deserved." The same statements were later repeated by the student during a meeting with the school's deputy headmaster and a senior adviser on education.
After a meeting of the disciplinary panel, during which the student's parents were present, the student was expelled. The parents were then offered an education option at "another establishment," France Bleu said.
A history and geography teacher, Paty was beheaded by a young Islamic extremist in Paris on October 16 for showing his class a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on freedom of expression. The murder sparked widespread outrage in France, forcing authorities to take a sober look at the radicalized youth in the education system and to crack down on extremist groups.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of National Education said there have been 793 "incidents" at schools during tributes to the slain teacher. Forty percent of them were reported as "provocations" and "disputes," 17 percent as defense of terrorism, 12 percent as refusals to participate in tributes to Paty, and nine percent as attempts to disrupt such tributes. Overall, 131 students were suspended and 44 were expelled.
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