A year and a half after the murder of school teacher Samuel Paty by a radicalised student, members of his family have lodged a legal complaint against several ministries and institutions who they consider to be at fault for failing to protect the professor.
Paty was stabbed and decapitated near a school where he taught history in the suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north-west of Paris, on 16 October, 2020.
Ten of his family members on Wednesday filed an official complaint with the Paris public prosecutor's office.
Family lawyer Virginie Le Roy said faults were committed by both the national education system and the Interior Ministry, "without which Samuel Paty could have been saved".
The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed the complaint was being processed.
However Francis Szpiner, lawyer for Samuel Paty's former partner and son, said on Twitter they had "learned with surprise" of the filing of a "complaint against X for non-impediment of crime" – a procedure neither party intends to pursue.
Szpiner added that Paty's former partner believed that "Salafist ideology" was solely responsible for the death of Paty and that the state had always supported herself and her son.
L’ancienne compagne et mère du fils de Samuel Paty a appris avec surprise le dépôt d’une plainte contre X pour « non empêchement de crime » procédure à laquelle elle n’entend pas s’associer. 1/2 #samuelpaty
— Francis Szpiner (@fszpiner) April 6, 2022
Ministries and intelligence services targeted
Le Roy's 80-page complaint targets the offences of "failure to prevent a crime and failure to assist a person in danger" and targets "several agents of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Education" who had direct or indirect knowledge of Paty's situation.
One of the legal issues at stake is whether anyone could have been aware of the existence of a real, targeted and immediate threat to the teacher.
The complaint recalls the slow, downward spiral that began with a course on secularism in the school in early October 2020, which culminated in Paty's murder by Abdullakh Anzorov, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin.
The radicalised 18-year-old accused claimed responsibility for the murder, congratulating himself on having "avenged the prophet" after Paty had showed him cartoons of the prophet Mohammed as part of the curriculum.
Anzorov was subsequently "neutralised" by the police.
For the family members, "from 8 October until 16 October, Samuel Paty, the [school] principal and teachers identified a serious threat to their physical integrity and the security of the school".
In particular, following media coverage of the case via social networks by Brahim Chnina – father of a schoolgirl who claimed to have attended the class – and by the Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui.
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Plaintiffs say French state failed Paty
But the so-called "fatwa against the teacher", as described by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had not been acted upon.
For the plaintiffs, "the agents of the Ministry of the Interior have failed," because Paty should have benefited from at least the lowest level of protection – one or two agents – which would have saved him.
The lawyer for the ten members of the Paty family has been questioning the responsibility of the state in the teacher's murder, which sent shockwaves across France and abroad.
A report by the General Inspectorate of Education investigating events at Paty's school before his murder, found that the institution had been responsive in its handling of the case, but highlighted a failure to monitor social networks.
On Wednesday, France's Ministry of Education confirmed it had received a 40-page letter on 25 March and said it would take time to reply, given the density of the correspondence and the more than 20 questions asked.
Meanwhile, the anti-terrorist investigation into the murder is still underway, with at least 15 people under examination, including six schoolchildren, the father of Paty's killer and Sefrioui.
The investigations are expected to be completed by the end of 2022.
