Dominique Schnapper on secularism in France after Samuel Paty's killing
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The beheading of a teacher by an 18-year-old outside Paris struck a particularly jarring blow to the French psyche. Samuel Paty was murdered for teaching his students, including young Muslims, about freedom of speech, including the freedom to mock religion. His killing was seen by some as an attack on France’s secular values. Stephen Sackur speaks to Dominique Schnapper, president of a council which advises the government on secularism in education. Is France's government getting its response to this tragedy right?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Some podcasts are about the news. Some podcasts are about politics and science and history. But my new podcast for the BBC World Service is about losing the man I loved. It's called goodbye to all this and you can find it by searching for goodbye to all this wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:28.1 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:32.8 | My guest today has spent a long lifetime as a respected French academic and public servant, and now, |
| 0:39.4 | well into her ninth decade, she shows little sign of slowing down. Dominique Schnapier, |
| 0:45.7 | trained as a social scientist. She has advised the French government on education, |
| 0:51.0 | nationality, military service, and currently she presides over a council of elders |
| 0:56.9 | considering the inculcation of France's secular values in the school system. Given that role, |
| 1:04.6 | the murder of a teacher by a Muslim teenager outside Paris a couple of weeks ago must have been |
| 1:10.8 | particularly shocking. |
| 1:12.4 | Because Samuel Patti was murdered precisely because he attempted to teach his students about |
| 1:18.9 | secular values, like freedom of expression, including the freedom to mock religion. And he was |
| 1:25.9 | murdered by an 18-year-old, the son of Chechen immigrants who had been |
| 1:30.5 | educated in France's secular school system. In response, President Macron has adopted a new |
| 1:36.4 | level of bellicose language, promising that Islamist organizations will find themselves living in fear. |
| 1:42.5 | France isn't the only country struggling with issues of |
| 1:45.8 | identity, diversity and core values, but does France serve as a model or a warning to others? |
| 1:53.4 | Well, Dominic Schnapper joins me now on the line from Paris. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:58.9 | Welcome, thank you. Well, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. |
| 2:02.6 | I think we have to begin with the horrible, brutal murder of Samuel Patti on October 16th, |
| 2:10.4 | outside the school in which he taught, not very far from Paris itself. He was murdered by an 18-year-old young man who was a product of the French |
| 2:20.9 | school system himself. Given your position as an advisor to the government on secularism in education, |
| 2:29.1 | I would very much like you just to give me your immediate response when you heard the news of this terrible crime. |
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