Assassination of Dominique Bernard: One year later, his wife speaks out for the first time

Dominique Bernard died exactly one year ago. On the eve of this painful anniversary, the wife of the professor of Frenchman assassinated in Arras confides in the columns of Le Monde. She assures that her husband felt in danger.

It has been a year since Mohammed Mogouchkov assassinated Dominique Bernard in Arras. A painful anniversary that is also an opportunity to pay tribute to the French teacher. For the first time since the tragedy, Isabelle Bernard, his widow, spoke publicly to our colleagues at Le Monde. She assures that her husband and she, an English teacher, were particularly affected by the death of Samuel Paty (assassinated on October 16, 2020 in an Islamist attack). The teacher couple were worried that the school had become a target and wondered together who would be killed next.

Concerning the man who murdered her husband, the couple were already aware of his dangerousness: “When Mohammed Mogouchkov was a student at middle school and Dominique had him in class, the management team did everything to point out the dangerous nature of this boy.” Isabelle Bernard also recounts that her husband would come home in the evening and explain to her: “I have to be careful, I can't say whatever I want.” The French teacher is said to have added: “another time in the year” : “I still said that I was a free person.”

Isabelle Bernard doesn't blame the National Education

Two weeks before her husband's assassination, Isabelle Bernard claims to have told a friend that Dominique could be in danger, with the school underestimating the risk linked to terrorism. However, she does not blame the National Education system. “Everyone did their job,” she says, “we cannot blame the National Education system for anything.” Isabelle Bernard adds that “the police knew he intended to act, but didn't know when”, assuring that “someone who is determined to kill will kill”.

A literary prize

Dominique Bernard's widow finally addresses the creation of a literary prize in tribute to her husband. It will be aimed at 4th and 3rd year middle school students as well as those in the second year of the schools of Arras, Dainville, Saint-Nicolas, Aubigny-en-Artois, Achicourt and Anzin-Saint-Aubin. As the rectorate states, “this competition seeks to encourage literary creation while promoting fundamental values, including tolerance”. This year, participants will have to write about tolerance, by creating a short story of less than 2,500 characters, inspired by the phrase of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “If you differ from me, my brother, far from weakening me, you enrich me.” Several prizes will be awarded by Brigitte Macron: the prize for the best collective and individual short story, the prize for progress and the prize for the creative notebook.

A tribute ceremony on Sunday

In order to pay tribute to Dominique Bernard, stabbed to death by Mohammed Mogouchkov, 20 years old, on Friday October 13, 2023 around 11 a.m. at the entrance to the Gambetta-Carnot school complex during a terrorist attack, a ceremony took place in Arras. Several ministers were present: Didier Migaud, Minister of Justice, Bruno Retailleau, Minister of the Interior, Anne Genette, Minister of National Education, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk Prevention, and Gabriel Attal, Prime Minister at the time of the events. Isabelle Bernard specified in an interview with La Voix du Nord that it was “out of the question” that there be a political recovery of this tribute.

After the city sirens sounded at 11 o'clock, several artistic performances took place at Place des Héros. The notes of the Adagio fourth of Mozart's quartet K.285 sounded after hearing the city sirens. At the same time, an artist began a fresco on which one can read “liberty, “equality, fraternity”. A dance followed, then the reading of the poem “Before the Night Comes”, by Hélène Dorion. A tribute was paid to all the victims of terrorism. Two people named the cities in which terrorist acts were committed: Magnanville, Paris, Marseille, Carcassonne, Tèbes, Strasbourg, Villejuif, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Nice, Arras… The speech by the Mayor of Arras closed this tribute ceremony. According to him, culture is “the strongest weapon”, while Dominique Bernard's wife had insisted that this ceremony put art and culture forward. Dominique Bernard was a man of letters, who loved to read with his family, who did not have a mobile phone and who devoted a large place to art in his life. This ceremony was made in his image. The public was then able to place a white rose at the foot of the plaque in tribute to the victims of terrorism.