PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron promised Wednesday that France will not renounce freedoms taught by a schoolteacher beheaded by a radical Islamist last week after showing caricatures of the prophet of Islam to his class.
At a national memorial at the Sorbonne University in central Paris, Macron praised history teacher Samuel Paty as the “face of the Republic” who “believed in knowledge.”
Paty, 47, was murdered on Friday by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin who had become radicalized. He was in turn shot dead by police.
“Samuel Paty ... became the face of the Republic, of our will to shatter terrorists, to (do away with) Islamists, to live like a community of free citizens in our country,” Macron said. “We will continue.”
A ceremonial military guard carried the teacher’s coffin into the cobblestone courtyard of the Sorbonne where the memorial took place before his family, government members and select guests. A giant screen was installed outside.
The stirring ceremony, with readings that included a poem by Albert Camus to his own teacher, came hours after the prosecutor sketched out how the teenager came to kill Paty, with the suspected help of two young students at the school in a northwest Paris suburb.
Jean-Francois Ricard said a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old are among seven people taken before an investigating magistrate on accusations of “complicity in murder in relation with a terrorist undertaking” and “criminal conspiracy.”
The killer offered students at the school where Paty taught 300-350 euros ($355-$415) to help him pick out the educator, Ricard said during a news conference.
“The investigation has established that the perpetrator knew the name of the teacher, the name of the school and its address, yet he did not have the means to identify him,” the prosecutor said. “That identification has only been possible with the help of students from the same school.”
He said the implication of the two young adolescents “appeared to be conclusive.”
Authorities have identified the killer as Abdoullakh Anzorov., a Moscow-born Chechen refugee.
Anzorov claimed responsibility in a text accompanied by a photograph of the victim found on his phone.
The other suspects include a student’s father who posted videos on social media that called for mobilization against the teacher and an Islamist activist who helped the man disseminate the virulent messages, which named Paty and gave the school’s address, Ricard said.
Two more men, aged 18 and 19, are accused of accompanying the attacker when he bought the weapons, including a knife and an airsoft gun, the prosecutor said. One of them allegedly drove Anzorov, who lived in the Normandy town of Evreux about 90 kilometers (56 miles) of the school, to near the school about three hours before the killing.
Another 18-year-old suspect had close contacts with the attacker and endorsed radical Islamism, Ricard said.
Al three of them, who were friends of Anzorov, allegedly said that “he was ‘radicalizing’ for several months, marked by a change of behavior, physical appearance, isolation, an assiduous frequentation of the mosque and ambiguous remarks about Jihad and the Daesh group.”
“Samuel Paty was the victim of a conspiracy of stupidity, hate, lies ... hate of the other ... hate of what we profoundly are,” Macron said during his speech, which blended honors to the victim and the teaching profession with his government’s efforts to root out Islamist radicals.
On Wednesday morning, the French government issued an order to dissolve a domestic militant Islamic group, the Collective Cheikh Yassine. Government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said it was “implicated, linked to Friday’s attack” and it was used to promote anti-republican hate speech. Other groups will be dissolved “in the coming weeks” for similar reasons, Attal said.
Named after a slain leader of the Palestinian Hamas, Collective Cheikh Yassine was founded in the early 2000s by the Islamist activist who is among the seven people accused of being accomplices to the attacker.
Attal also confirmed that the government ordered a mosque in the northeast Paris suburb of Pantin to close for six months.
The Pantin mosque is being punished for relaying the angry father’s message on social media.
Authorities say it has long had an imam following the Salafist path, a rigorous interpretation of the Muslim holy book.
A national memorial event is scheduled to be held Wednesday evening in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university.
Macron says beheaded teacher was victim of stupidity, hate
https://arab.news/w6ygd
Macron says beheaded teacher was victim of stupidity, hate
- Macron: “Samuel Paty ... became the face of the Republic”
- Authorities have identified the killer as Abdoullakh Anzorov
Filipinos celebrate Christmas on a budget amid soaring costs
- Filipinos are choosing modest Christmas gifts, scaling down year-end festivities
- Millions look to content creators for tips on how to spend less for Christmas dinner
MANILA: As the predominantly Catholic Philippines celebrates one of its most important annual holidays on Thursday, many Filipinos have been forced to rethink their traditional Christmas celebrations amid soaring prices.
This year, street food vendor Gemma Gracia is among those who will keep her business open during the holidays.
“As a vendor, I’ve felt the prices go up since I also still buy at the market for our needs and for our selling needs,” she told Arab News.
But as celebrating Christmas was important for her family, the 39-year-old has allocated 1,000 Philippine pesos ($17) for a family meal out at Jollibee, the Philippines’ biggest fast-food chain restaurant.
“When you don’t have food to share on the table on this holiday, it’s a sad day. That’s why we make sure that we always have something on the table each year,” she said.
For many Filipinos, the time-honored traditions of Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve, is the most awaited part of this holiday season, when dinner tables across the country are filled with a hearty selection of traditional dishes.
Noche Buena, which is Spanish for “the good night,” is the dinner that follows the last evening mass of the season, known as misa de gallo or simbang gabi.
In the Philippines, such festive staples include meaty Filipino-style spaghetti and hamonado, the local version of a Christmas ham that usually serves as the centerpiece of Christmas dinner tables.
But the pinch from rising prices has affected Filipino shoppers in recent years, forcing them to adjust according to their budget.
Although the country’s central bank said inflation had eased to 1.5 percent in November, many say the statistics do not reflect on-the-ground realities, where people reel from rising retail prices, shrinking portions and diminishing purchasing power of the peso.
Allan Manansala, a 48-year-old construction worker in Manila, told Arab News that he is expecting to spend 5,000 pesos for his family of five in 2025, nearly a third of his monthly wage and about a fifth higher than what he spent in previous years.
“I might have to skip giving my children gifts this year because of the costs,” he said.
To get around the high costs, Manansala is skipping the Noche Buena festivities altogether and has instead decided to splurge on New Year’s Eve dinner, which is also a significant occasion in the Philippines.
Others, like Allan Melenio, look for different ways to save up.
“Our relative owns a meat shop, so we’re able to save on that since the prices are quite low,” he told Arab News. “But everywhere else, a piece of meat can cost so much.”
While the economy has forced Filipinos to make smarter choices and get creative, content creators are among those offering ideas to address consumers’ woes, teaching people how to stretch their meager budgets for the holidays.
One such tip came from Ninong Ry, a food content creator who challenged himself to prepare an eight-dish Noche Buena dinner with a budget of 1,500 pesos. Posted about two weeks before Christmas, his one-hour YouTube video has since garnered more than 1.4 million views.
The video was also a response to comments from Philippine Trade Secretary Cristina Aldeguer-Roque, who suggested last month that 500 pesos was enough for a family of four to host a modest Christmas Eve dinner, sparking anger among Filipinos who said she was out of touch with reality.
Jelmark Toqueb, who works as a plumber in Manila, said that the 500-peso budget was unrealistic.
“It is clearly not enough. (Five hundred pesos) is not even enough for you to cook spaghetti with meat. Maybe just the noodles and the sauce,” he told Arab News.
For 32-year-old Toqueb and his wife, who works as a public school teacher, the holiday season remains a cherished occasion to spend quality time with the family. As their Christmas tradition involves gift-giving, he chose more modest presents this year to circumvent the high costs.
“The prices now are different even from last year, (when they were) already high,” Toqueb said. “Even if the gift is simple, it’s fine. It’s the thought that counts.”
