From Samuel Paty to the teacher killed in Arras, a series of disturbing commonalities and some capital differences

On October 16, 2020, Samuel Paty was killed. decapitated by a terrorist named Abdoullakh Anzorov, a high school student who accused him of having shown caricatures of Mohammed in class. While we were getting ready to celebrate this sad anniversary, the scene seems to repeat itself over and over again. Arras.

A knife attack of inconceivable violence in front of a high school, the words "Allah Akhbar" uttered by the assailant, and above all a murdered professor. The drama that unfolded this Friday, October 13, 2023, in the streets of Arras, in Pas-de-Calais, killing a teacher, has a very particular resonance in this area. just a few days before a sad anniversary: ​​that of the assassination of Samuel Paty, beheaded. à Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on October 16, 2020.

Having become a symbol of the fight against obscurantism and the risks it entails, the history-geography teacher had been attacked three years ago to the day or almost by an 18-year-old high school student. At the time, Abdoullakh Anzorov, who had acted at the the continuation of a controversy over the exhibition by the teacher of caricatures of Mohammed in Paris. his students.

This time, it is a French teacher in question and he could be a collateral victim. According to the first elements communicated in the press concerning the knife attack in Arras, he would have tried to kill him. to intervene while the attacker, a radicalized young man of Chechen origin, was targeting several other people and seemed to be looking for a history teacher according to a witness. There are two other victims injured in this attack, including a technical agent and a PE teacher. One of them is in absolute emergency. They were transferred to Arras hospital.

Destabilizing common points

Other points in common link this drama with the assassination of Samuel Paty three years ago. The author of the stabbings is a former student, like Abdoullakh Anzorov who had beheaded Samuel Paty. Like him, the alleged author from attack to attack Arras was armed; of a knife. Like him, he was born in Russia, of Chechen origin.

This time, however, the author of the attack would be listed for radicalization and monitored. for several months by the DGSI, unlike Abdoullakh Anzorov who was not on file, although known to the police services for common law crimes. Another notable difference: if Abdoullakh Anzorov had been killed à following the attack, taking with him his last secrets, this is not the case for the Arras attacker, who may perhaps be able to provide details about his psychology and its transition to the act. And one day be at the center of a trial, for history and for the families of the victims.