Sister of Slain Teacher Samuel Paty Warns Other Teachers Will Fall to Intolerance

Nearly six years after the beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty, his sister has issued a stark warning: other educators will fall victim to the same intolerance. In an exclusive interview with La Libre Belgique, Mickaëlle Paty said she is convinced that other teachers will fall under the blows of intolerance, arguing that the threats against educators have not diminished since her brother’s murder on October 16, 2020.

Context

Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher at the Bois d’Aulne middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, was beheaded by an 18-year-old Islamist terrorist after showing his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo during a lesson on freedom of expression and laïcité — the French principle of secularism. The attack followed a campaign of online harassment fueled by a parent who shared videos accusing the teacher of displaying inappropriate content.

Paty’s assassination sent shockwaves through France and beyond, becoming a symbol of the threats to freedom of expression and the challenges of teaching sensitive topics in a secular education system. He was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour.

A Warning That Has Not Faded

Mickaëlle Paty’s interview, conducted by journalist Marie Debauche and published on May 20, coincides with the Belgian release of L’Abandon (The Abandonment), a film directed by Vincent Garenq that retraces the 11 days leading up to the assassination. Speaking to RTBF, she said: “At present, I am not sure that such an event could not happen again.”

The film, which premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 13 and was released in French cinemas the same day, stars Antoine Reinartz as Samuel Paty and Emmanuelle Bercot as the school principal. Mickaëlle Paty served as a consultant — a “vigie” (watchwoman) — for three years, working closely with Garenq to ensure factual accuracy. The script went through 14 versions, and the director spent a month attending the appeal trial to ensure authenticity.

In an interview with Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace at Cannes, Mickaëlle Paty described seeing the film for the first time: “After a phase of stupor, the first words I found were: ‘I saw Samuel.’ That was the essential thing. It was important that we hadn’t betrayed who he was.”

Institutional Abandonment

The title L’Abandon speaks directly to the central theme of the interview: the failure of institutions to protect Samuel Paty despite clear warning signs. “My brother had said he was threatened by local Islamists, the entire school knew it,” Mickaëlle Paty told DNA. “And those who should have defended him, those whom the title ‘Abandonment’ designates, could have acted. Should have. And the real question is: Did they even want to?”

Speaking to RTBF, she lamented the absence of accountability: “Instead of making a sort of mea culpa regarding their failure, which was already denounced right after the attack, in the end, it never came.”

Director Vincent Garenq described the film as “a message of reconciliation, a humanist message,” adding that “not everything is black and white, everything is gray.” The film portrays the complexity of the tragedy — teachers who abandoned Paty, others who supported him, Muslim mothers who defended him, and even the daughter of an Islamist who testified against her father.

Call for Pantheonization

Beyond the film, Mickaëlle Paty has been pressing for official recognition of her brother’s sacrifice. On RTL on May 14, she called on President Emmanuel Macron to decide on the Pantheonization of her brother before this summer, stating it would be “an important gesture for our teachers who really want my brother to enter the Pantheon.”

The Pantheon in Paris houses the remains of distinguished French citizens. The Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray, has expressed personal opposition to the idea.

A Broader Crisis in Education

Mickaëlle Paty’s warnings extend beyond her brother’s case to the systemic challenges facing French educators. “Since the early 2000s, voices were already warning about the threats teachers were facing, cases of censorship, various pressures,” she told DNA. “In 2015, Al-Qaida had publicly asked for teachers in France to be targeted.”

She argues that while some measures have been taken — threatened teachers are now removed from their schools — the root causes remain unaddressed. “We learned part of the lesson, but not entirely,” she told RTBF. “For now, I feel like we’re still in 2020.”

What’s Next

The appeal trial for four individuals linked to the assassination concluded in February 2026, with sentences ranging from 6 to 15 years in prison. The release of L’Abandon is expected to reignite national debate about teacher protection and secularism in French schools.

Mickaëlle Paty hopes the film will serve as an educational tool. “Teachers are a bit short of material to explain,” she told RTBF. “They can talk about the lesson, but to reconstruct the entire causal chain that led to a man being beheaded at the exit of his school, they lack material.”

Whether President Macron will act on the Pantheonization request before summer, and whether the film will prompt meaningful institutional change, remain open questions. For Mickaëlle Paty, the stakes could not be higher: “I am convinced that other teachers will fall under the blows of intolerance.”