France to rally in solidarity, defiance after beheading of teacher
People across France are expected to join rallies on Sunday in a show of solidarity and defiance following the beheading of a teacher outside his school for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
The killing of history teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb on Friday has sparked outrage in France and memories of a wave of Islamist violence in 2015 sparked by caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. "It really is absolutely vital that you show our mobilization and our solidarity, our national cohesion," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told France 2, calling on "everyone (to) support the teachers".
One rally was set to occur at the Place de la Republique in Paris, a traditional site of protest where around 1.5 million persons demonstrated in 2015 carrying out a deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo's office by Islamist gunmen. Rallies were also expected in Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Nantes, Marseille, Lille, and Bordeaux. Paty had been the prospective of online threats for showing the cartoons, with the father of 1 schoolgirl launching an online demand "mobilization" against him, France's anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said.
The 18-year-old Chechen suspect, named as Abdullah A, was shot dead by police soon after the attack. Witnesses said he was spotted at the institution on Friday afternoon asking pupils where he may find Mr Paty. The schoolgirl's father and a known Islamist militant are among those arrested, along with several members of the suspect's family.
An 11th person was taken into custody on Sunday, a judicial source said. Ricard said the institution received threats after the class in early October, which featured the controversial caricatures - among the prophet naked - with the girl's father accusing Paty of disseminating "pornography".
The aggrieved father named Paty and gave the school's address in a social media post just days prior to the beheading, which President Emmanuel Macron has labeled an Islamist terror attack. Ricard didn't say if the attacker had any links to the institution, pupils or parents, or had acted independently in response to the web campaign. A photograph of Mr Paty and a note confessing to his murder were on the assailant's mobile phone.
The prosecutor said the attacker has been armed with a knife, an airgun, and five canisters. He previously fired shots at police and tried to stab them because they closed in on him. He was subsequently shot nine times, said Ricard. The Russian embassy in Paris said the suspect's family had arrived in France from Chechnya when he was six and requested asylum.
Locals in the Normandy town of Evreux, where in fact the attacker lived, described him as low key. One resident who was simply to school with him said he previously become noticeably religious in recent years. "Before, he got involved with fights, but for the last several years he had calmed down" and have been "immersed in religion", he said.
Friday's attack was the second such incident since a trial started last month into the January 2015 massacre at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo. The magazine republished the cartoons in the run-up to the trial, and last month a Pakistani man wounded two persons with a meat cleaver beyond your magazine's former office.
Ricard said Paty's murder illustrated "the very high-level terrorist threat" France still faces but added that the attacker himself was not recognized by French intelligence services. An investigation is underway into "murder associated with a terrorist organization". The investigation may also look at a tweet from a merchant account opened by the attacker, and since shut down, that showed a picture of Paty's head and described Macron as "the first choice of the infidels".
