A10 MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2020
NÉVREUX, France — They could have
easily shared the same classroom — the
immigrant teenager and the veteran
teacher known for his commitment to in-
stilling the nation’s ideals, in a relation-
ship that had turned waves of newcom-
ers into French citizens.
But Abdoullakh Anzorov, 18, who grew
up in France from age 6 and was the
product of its public schools, rejected
those principles in a horrific crime that
shocked and enraged France. Offended
by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
shown in a class on free speech given by
the teacher, Samuel Paty, 47, the teen-
ager beheaded him a week ago with a
long knife before being gunned down by
the police.
France has paid national homage to
Mr. Paty because the killing was seen as
an attack on the very foundation — the
teacher, the public school — of French
citizenship. In the anger sweeping the
nation, French leaders have promised to
redouble their defense of a public educa-
tional system that plays an essential role
in shaping national identity.
The killing has underscored the in-
creasing challenges to that system as
France grows more racially and ethni-
cally diverse. Two or three generations of
newcomers have now struggled to inte-
grate into French society, the political es-
tablishment agrees.
But the nation, broadly, has balked at
the suggestion from critics, many in the
Muslim community, that France’s model
of integration, including its schools,
needs an update or an overhaul.
President Emmanuel Macron’s em-
phatic defense of the caricatures has also
led to ripples overseas. Several Muslim
nations, including Kuwait and Qatar,
have begun boycotting French goods in
protest. President Recep Tayyip Erdo-
gan of Turkey questioned Mr. Macron’s
mental health in a speech, prompting
France to recall its ambassador to Tur-
key.
Mr. Anzorov was the latest product of
France’s public schools to turn against
their ideals: Two brothers who went to
public schools in 2015 attacked Charlie
Hebdo, the satirical magazine that pub-
lished — and republished last month —
caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Jean-Pierre Obin, a former senior na-
tional education official, said that public
schools played a leading role in “the cul-
tural assimilation and political integra-
tion” of immigrant children who “were
turned into good little French” and no
longer felt “Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
or Polish.” Other institutions that also
played this role — the Catholic Church,
unions and political parties — have been
weakened, leaving only the schools, he
said.
“Today, public schools can’t fully do
this," Mr. Obin said. “But I don’t see an-
other model — especially the Anglo-
Saxon model of multiculturalism, which I
don’t think is more successful.”
The French model ran into obstacles
when the immigrants were no longer Eu-
ropean, white or Roman Catholic. Today
about 10 percent of France’s population
is believed to be Muslim.
The push to assimilate risks engender-
ing a form of xenophobia in the broader
population, said Hakim El Karoui, a sen-
ior fellow at the Paris-based think tank
Institut Montaigne.
“The message is: ‘We don’t want your
otherness because we want you to be like
us,’ ” he said.
The children who fail to assimilate —
and often end up lost, feeling that they
belong to neither France nor their ances-
tral countries — embody the doubt “that
our model is not the right one,” Mr. El
Karoui said, a possibility that the French
“obviously find unbearable.”
It was in schools that immigrant chil-
dren learned not only proper French, but
also how to politely address teachers as
“Madame” or “Monsieur.” They also ab-
sorbed notions like secularism in a coun-
try where, much as in the United States,
ideals form the basis of nationhood.
At least on paper, Mr. Anzorov seemed
a good candidate to fit into French soci-
ety. A Russian of Chechen descent, he ar-
rived in Paris when he was 6 and entered
a public primary school. When he was
about 10, his family moved to Évreux, a
city in an economically depressed area
about 55 miles west of Paris and home to
about 50 Chechen families, according to
Chechens living in the city.
The Chechens largely kept to them-
selves in Madeleine, a poor neighbor-
hood with other immigrants, who are
mostly from former French colonies and
whose integration is often complicated
by France’s colonial legacy.
Mr. Anzorov attended a middle school
called Collège Pablo Neruda that, hew-
ing to the national curriculum, also of-
fered civics lessons on secularism and
freedom of expression. He lived in a rent-
subsidized, five-story apartment build-
ing with his family, with a direct view of
the local jail.
“He always passed in front of my place
when going home,” said Ruslan Ibragi-
mov, 49, a Chechen who arrived in
Évreux 18 years ago. “He was always
alone, with his backpack. Even when he
would see me from afar, he’d come over
to greet me. He never talked much.”
Never much interested in his studies,
Mr. Anzorov was passionate about
mixed martial arts, said a 26-year-old
Chechen who also practices the sport. In
2018, Mr. Anzorov, then 16, lived for a
while in Toulouse, where he had an uncle.
There, he joined a sports club that had
a Chechen coach and a good reputation
among athletes, the 26-year-old said,
speaking on the condition of anonymity
because he said he feared reprisals
against Chechens.
“His goal was to fight in the U.F.C.,” the26-year-old said, referring to the Ulti-
mate Fighting Championship, a top pro-
moter of mixed martial arts.
Located in a public facility, the club
was investigated by the local authorities
because some members prayed in the
locker room and asked women to cover
their arms and legs, according to the
French news media.
In a country guided by strict secular-
ism, such actions are a violation of
French law and regarded as signs of radi-
calization by the authorities — and they
have led to many sports clubs being
placed under surveillance.
But it was not known what, if any, influ-ence the club exerted on Mr. Anzorov,
who had not been on any terrorism
watch list.
Unsuccessful in Toulouse, Mr. Anzorov
came back to Évreux. His father, who
specialized in setting up security for con-
struction sites and other businesses, was
encouraging his son to join him, Mr.
Ibragimov said. The father had recently
bought his son a car, he added.
“But he couldn’t drive it yet because he
still hadn’t gotten his driver’s license,”
Mr. Ibragimov said.
It was only in recent months that the
teenager had shown signs of radicaliza-
tion, said the special antiterrorism pros-ecutor, Jean-François Ricard. Mr. An-
zorov’s transformation appeared to have
played out online, according to an analy-
sis by the French news website Media-
part of a Twitter account that he created
in June and that was deleted last week
after his death.
His posts on Twitter attacked a wide
array of targets, including Jews, Chris-
tians and the rulers of Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Paty was teaching history and
civics at a middle school in Conflans-
Sainte-Honorine, a middle-class Paris
suburb, at the time of the attack.
“He is the kind of teacher who leaves
his mark, by his gentleness and open-
mindedness,” said Maeva Latil, 21, who
joined a tribute in front of the Jacques-
Prévert middle school, in a small village
south of Paris, where Mr. Paty taught be-
tween 2011 and 2018.
In history classes, he used contempo-
rary examples — from Pink Floyd songs
to a book on racism by a soccer player —
to make his teaching resonate with his
students, said Aurélie Davoust, 43, a for-
mer literature teacher at Jacques-
Prévert.
“With him, there was really this as-
pect: You don’t study history to talk
about dead things, you study history to
become a citizen,” she said.
Mr. Paty was a strong believer in
laïcité, the strict secularism that sepa-
rates religion from the state in France.
Ms. Davoust recalled Mr. Paty once ask-
ing a young girl wearing a cross around
her neck in school to take it off.
“Our democracy was established
against the Catholic Church and the
monarchy, and laïcité is the way that de-
mocracy was organized in France,” said
Dominique Schnapper, a sociologist and
president of the Council of the Wise, a
group created by the government in 2018
to reinforce laïcité in public schools.
In a class on freedom of expression —
including the right to say blasphemous
things about all religions — Mr. Paty
used caricatures of the Prophet Muham-
mad, Jesus and rabbis to teach, former
students said.
After his transfer a few years ago to
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in a Paris
suburb with a more diverse population,
he appeared to adjust his approach.
When showing caricatures, he began
telling students who might be offended
that they could leave the classroom or
look away.
At the new school, students said he
showed mostly caricatures of the Proph-
et Muhammad that had been published
by Charlie Hebdo. One of the two shown
this month was titled “A star is born” and
depicted Muhammad fully nude. That
upset many Muslim students and their
parents, according to the local chapter of
PEEP, a national parents association.
Mr. Paty said he was surprised by the
backlash and apologized to students,
said Talia, a 13-year-old student who was
present at the lecture.
“He told us that he’s a teacher, that this
class is part of his program, that France
is a secular country and so is our school,”
said Talia, who asked that she be identi-
fied by only her first name given the sen-
sitivity of the situation.
One angry father complained about
the teacher in videos he uploaded on so-
cial media. Enraged, Mr. Anzorov, the
Chechen teenager, traveled all the way
from Évreux to Conflans-Sainte-Hono-
rine, nearly 60 miles, to kill Mr. Paty.
“Did he never have committed teach-
ers? Or did he have them and he didn’t
hear them?" Ms. Schnapper, the presi-
dent of the Council of the Wise, said of Mr.
Anzorov’s years in France’s public
schools. “We’ll never know. But it’s a sign
of failure.”A Teacher, His Killer and Challenges to France’s Assimilation Policy
Debate on System
Of Secular Ideals
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
and CONSTANT MÉHEUTA memorial to Samuel Paty at the middle school where he taught in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a Paris suburb. Mr. Paty was beheaded by an 18-year-old.PHOTOGRAPHS BY DMITRY KOSTYUKOV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESA march in memory of Mr. Paty last week. The killing was seen as an attack on the foundation of French citizenship.A bus stop tribute to Mr. Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. He was a firm believer in laïcité, France’s strict secularism.Antonella Francini contributed report-
ing.
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