Samuel Paty murder: Where will France go now?

The President of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, commented about the brutal murder of French teacher Samuel Paty, who was decapitated by 18-year-old refugee of Chechen origin for demonstrating caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

"This is not the first time when the French are trying to blame all their problems on the Chechens. I have to assure everyone here that the Chechens have nothing to do with that. Moreover, A. Anzorov  [the perpetrator] spent almost his entire life in France. His parents took him there when he was a child, so he grew up next to French people, he communicated, spoke and wrote in French. Most likely, he was aware of his actions, realizing that the state was not listening to believers at all. Looking ahead, so that French investigators would not add color to the version of the "Chechen trace", I'd like to stress out that Anzorov visited the Chechen Republic only once in his life, when he was two years old," Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel.

"We condemn this terrorist attack and express our condolences to the relatives of the victim. Being vehemently opposed to terrorism in any form, I urge not to provoke believers, not to offend their religious feelings," Kadyrov added.

In his opinion, the tragedy in France "makes one think that the French society, when talking about democracy, often confuses it with permissiveness, and demonstrates impermissible attitude towards Islamic values."

"Such actions cannot be called anything but provocative. We remember very well how publications in Charlie Hebdo magazine caused outrage in many Muslims around the world. All that led to the attack on the editorial office of the magazine, when many people were killed," Kadyrov said.

On Friday afternoon, October 16, an 18-year-old student killed a college teacher who demonstrated  caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed at his classes as an example of freedom of expression. During the arrest, the killer was shot by police.

Representatives of the Russian Embassy later said that Russia did not consider the killer a Russian, as the suspect had lived in France with his family for the past 12 years.

Supposedly, the killer took measures to prepare for the gruesome crime. He asked college students to show him the history teacher. The victim's photo, taken prior to his death, was subsequently found in perpetrator's cell phone.

The display of the caricatures outraged some of the parents, one of them filed a complaint. After that, Samuel Paty was interrogated, the essence of the complaint was revealed to him. Paty noted that the student whose father made the complaint was not in his class. The teacher received death threats for several days afterwards. Paty reported the threats to his superiors and complained about slander. Four days later, he was beheaded.

The man's decapitated body was found on the evening of October 16 near College du Bois d'Aulne. He was allegedly attacked while walking home after classes. Anzorov killed Paty with a 30-cm knife and beheaded him in the street. Anzorov inflicted a number of wounds to his head, abdomen, and upper limbs. Witnesses told police they heard the killer shout "Allahu Akbar" during the attack. An eyewitness, who reported the murder to the police, first mistook the body for a mannequin, as the "surreal cruelty" of the scene was striking.

Minutes later, Anzorov posted the picture of Samuel Paty's severed head on his Twitter account with a caption addressing President of France Emmanuel Macron: "Macron, the leader of the infidels, I executed one of your dogs, who dared to humiliate Muhammad."

The killer was later identified as Abdullah Anzorov, an 18-year-old native of Moscow of Chechen origin. It was specified, however, that Abdullah was not listed among radicals.

Macron visited the site of the tragedy on Friday evening and gave a short speech full of empty meaningless words, calling the murder of the teacher "a characteristic Islamist terrorist attack."

According to him, he was killed only because he defended the values of his country. Macron said that the terrorist "wanted to destroy the Republic, education, an opportunity to make our children free citizens."

And that was it. Just words, no action. Janitors will clean the street from all candles and flowers left in memory of the victims, and people will forget about him in a few days. This is what France is going to do.