In the show C to you from Thursday October 5, 2023, broadcast on France 5, Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine received on her set two women who had each worked on the Samuel Paty affair. As a reminder, this history-geography professor in a college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) had been murdered and beheaded by an 18-year-old terroriston October 16, 2020, for showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed taken from the magazine Charlie Hebdo. A few days before the third anniversary of the tragic death of the professor, Christine Tournadre, director of the documentary Mr. Paty’s college, and Valérie Ignouet, author of the comic strip Black pencil: Samuel Paty, story of a teacher, were invited to talk about their respective works around this drama. The opportunity for viewers to discover images from the documentary film, in which testify from former students and colleagues of the deceased. In particular, we see them recount the moment when they learned that the teacher had been murdered. “So after that it became clearer, we were told ‘decapitated’, and then we were told a teacher… and we all knew it was Samuel“, says one of the teachers at the same establishment. And to add: “It was the tragedy of all of France.”
Christine Tournadre: “They were traumatized”
Christine Tournadre explained her approach: “I immersed myself in college and I mainly talk about the aftermath”. She returns in particular to her memories of filming, when she meets Samuel Paty’s colleagues, back in the establishment, frightened and in “a state of hypervigilance”. “They are under the influence of trauma, they were stunned, traumatized by what happened. On the other hand, I would say that today, they have somehow gone beyond this state to roll up their sleeves and try with their students to ensure that they come back by putting words to all that.” she continues. The director took the opportunity to highlight the support that the deceased’s replacement teacher had received from the students, praising his courage to do class after this tragedy.