The TLDR: A 47-year-old school teacher was decapitated by a young Chechen man. The reason: He showed students disrespectful images of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a discussion about freedom of expression. The killing has sparked protests—and jolted a nation already divided over its Muslim minority.

Tell me about the killing

The Charlie Hebdo connection: 

• Samuel Paty—a teacher at Collège du Bois-d’Aulne—showed his 13-year-old students two caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a debate over freedom of expression. 
• These images (an example here) were published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2006—and sparked great outrage. 
• The magazine’s offices were firebombed in 2011, and in 2015, three men gunned down 12 members of the staff.
• Last month, the trial of the killers’ accomplices began—which in turn reopened the controversy. 
• The magazine republished the same images in an act of defiance.
• A Pakistani immigrant recently stabbed two people with a knife, angered after watching videos showing protests in Pakistan against the cartoons.

The trigger: When Paty shared the images with his students, he first asked the Muslim kids to look away or leave the room. One Muslim parent said:

"My son understood right away—the evening he came home, he understood right away that it was not to discriminate. He told me, no it was not to offend us, it was images that he didn't want us to see. My son understood that at no moment he (teacher) had lacked respect.”

The controversy: However, some of the parents were very upset—especially one father whose daughter refused to leave the room. He uploaded angry YouTube videos claiming the teacher had shown a “photo of a naked man” claiming he was the “Muslim prophet”—and described Paty as a “voyou” (thug). The videos quickly went viral, spreading across social media and WhatsApp groups—even as the school hurried to bring the parents together and resolve the issue. 

The killing: Abdoulakh A. was an 18-year-old immigrant of Chechen descent. He has no known connection to the school or Paty. Officials say he stalked Paty, followed the teacher when he was walking home after school—and then stabbed and decapitated him with a knife. The police were called and they tracked Abdoulakh down on a nearby street. He refused to surrender and was shot 10 times.

Was he a terrorist?

As of now, he appears to have been working alone. The French police have arrested eleven people—including the angry father whose videos spread the outrage. But they have not found any evidence that Abdoulakh—who had lived in France on a residence permit since 2008—was connected to any extremist organisation. His family describes him as “discreet” and “nice”: 

"If we had known he was into religion, we could have anticipated it, but we actually didn't see it coming… We apologise - in front of the whole of France - we apologise. The Chechen community is not like that. The teacher has done his job; I have nothing against the teacher. I'm sorry, really, we are grateful to France.”

So what’s going on here?

A growing minority: There are roughly six million Muslims in France—accounting for 10% of its population. They are mostly children of migrants from the country’s former colonial territories: Algeria, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Tunisia, and Senegal. But a minority are recent asylum-seekers like the 30,000 Chechens who have fled war and persecution in Russia. 

Rising radicalisation: The Muslim minority in France is mostly poor, ghettoised and treated as second class citizens. They often compare their situation to that of Blacks in America. A 2019 survey showed that Muslims in France were harassed at least once—including 60% women who wear a headscarf. And the number of anti-Muslim attacks rose by 54% last year.

The growing resentment has also made French Muslims more vulnerable to recruitment, according to Muslim activists:

“When you have millions of people who are already marginalized, disenfranchised, and without community institutions that can give them answers, you create easy targets for extremists… The narrative of these groups is that France exploited and humiliated your parents, they destroyed the countries of your ancestry, and now they hate you too. Do you want to keep trying to be like them, or do you want to take revenge?”

Rising fear of extremism: In a recent speech, President Emmanuel Macron identified “Islamist separatism” as a key threat to the future of France and its democracy. He pointed out 70 residents of a single district outside Paris had become jihadists in Syria—and over the past three years, counter-terrorist police have thwarted 32 attempted attacks in France. 

Macron also took aim at personal Muslim practices:

“He said this form of sectarianism often translated into children being kept out of school, and the use of sporting, cultural and other community activities as a ‘pretext to teach principles that do not conform to the laws of the republic.’”

The government is already working on a bill that will ban home-schooling (to counter radical Koranic schools), forbid foreign imams from training clerics in France and tighten controls on cultural associations and prayer halls.

Point to note: France adheres to an extremely strict form of secularism—which protects the private right to worship but forbids all public expressions of faith. Muslims have therefore been the target of a series of laws banning the veil in all public spaces, prohibiting head scarfs in public school classrooms etc. In 2018, mayors in beach towns tried to ban burkinis—full coverage swimsuits that are popular among Indians as well.

The bottomline: As Economist notes, this beheading will only harden and deepen the divide: 

“As France deals with the aftershock, this latest unspeakable attack is likely to strengthen the hands of those urging a clamp-down to defend freedom of expression and secularism. This in turn will reinforce the determination of critics who counter that such measures legitimise Islamophobia.”

And this cycle of extremist attacks and government reprisals will only escalate—each confirming the legitimacy of the other. Eye for an eye… until everyone is well and truly blind.

Reading list

• New York Times has the best reporting on the killing. Sky News has the response of the killer’s family. Economist offers a balanced take on its fallout. 
• BBC News and Bloomberg News have more on Macron’s latest plan to battle separatist Islam. 
• Al Jazeera offers an overview of the hijab wars. 
• TRT World looks at the colonial roots of Islamophobia in France. 
• But the best reads on this difficult subject: The Intercept’s upclose report on French Muslims, and The Atlantic on the government’s effort to create a ‘French Islam’.