Just days before he was attacked and murdered near his workplace in Conflans Saint-Honorine, Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, had given a free speech lesson to his students.

During the lesson, he is said to have shown those present a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

This is to explain the course of events in the bloody terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo 2015. A 15-year-old student, who knew Samuel Paty, tells BFM TV that he did so for several years as part of a teaching program.

Parent: Did not want to discriminate

But this time, the caricature is said to have upset at least one of the students' parents who sent in a complaint against Samuel Paty, and made a post about him on social media.

Paty must then have received death threats.

A rumor has also spread at school that he was a racist and Islamophobic.

But not everyone agreed that this was the case.

- He did not do this to create controversy, discriminate or to insult the children, says a parent of one of Patys 13-year-old students, to BFM TV.

- My son told me that he was a very nice person.

National manifestation

On Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron's staff announced that a national demonstration for Samuel Paty would be held after dialogue with his family.

A date has not yet been set, writes Le Monde.

A total of nine people have been detained by the police since the act.

Several of these must be related to the 18-year-old perpetrator and two of the persons must be parents of children at the school where Samuel Paty worked.

The incident is being investigated as an act of terrorism with an Islamist motive by French authorities.

The perpetrator, who is said to be of Chechen origin but born in Moscow, is said to have shouted "allahu akbar" when he was confronted by the police, and to have shared pictures of Samuel Paty's severed head on social media.