Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (AFP)

One year to the day after his assassination, tributes to Professor Samuel Paty take place on Saturday in the Val-d'Oise where he lived, in the Yvelines where he taught, and in Paris where his family will be received at the Élysée.

In the entrance of the Ministry of National Education, a plaque was inaugurated in the morning by Prime Minister Jean Castex, alongside the parents and family of Samuel Paty, who wished to remain very discreet and not to be filmed nor interviewed.

Many former education ministers were present, from both left and right.

In a solemn speech, the head of government presented Samuel Paty as "a creative and determined pedagogue, inhabited by a form of vocation capable of awakening consciences", "a servant of the Republic", "victim of Islamist terrorism and human cowardice ".

"Paying homage to Professor Paty (...) is also to make the Republican project flourish more than ever, in that it is the most promising bulwark against all forms of barbarism, rejection and violence" , he said.

At the beginning of the afternoon, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), during a rare speech, teachers from the college of Bois d'Aulne where Mr. Paty taught will deliver a speech, in particular in front of students and parents, the former principal of the establishment and the Minister of National Education.

Already on Friday, countless schools, colleges and high schools across France had honored the memory of the history-geography teacher, brutally murdered on October 16, 2020 - stabbed and beheaded - for showing caricatures of Muhammad to his students during a course on freedom of expression.

It was in a street in Eragny-sur-Oise (Val-d'Oise) that the attack occurred, just a few hundred meters from the college of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) whose teacher was going out.

The mayor of Eragny-sur-Oise, Thibault Humbert, in his town on October 16, 2021, during a tribute to Samuel Paty, with the president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse Alain JOCARD AFP

Several hundred residents of Eragny-sur-Oise, where Samuel Paty, father of a little boy, lived, gathered in the middle of the morning for a ceremony.

Young people read texts evoking freedom of expression and a colorful fresco was unveiled on the wall of a gymnasium, accompanied by this quote from Victor Hugo: "freedom begins where ignorance ends"

At 3:00 p.m., the town hall of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine will unveil a book-shaped monument in one of the city's central squares.

Samuel Paty's family will then be received by Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée.

Finally, a square located opposite the Sorbonne will be renamed Square Samuel Paty, during a ceremony that the mayor of Paris wants to be simple and collected.

Students and teachers gathered in the courtyard of Les Battières college to pay tribute to Professor Samuel Paty, October 15, 2021 in Lyon PHILIPPE DESMAZES AFP

- Slams about freedom -

After the attack, many teachers at the college where Samuel Paty taught asked for work stoppages.

"Up to fifteen teachers may have been absent simultaneously," indicates the rectorate of Versailles, which has put in place a hotline until the end of October.

During the tribute in the establishment, students will recite slams written around freedom.

Friday, they were notably invited to read their poems about their teacher.

"These poems, it was good, but it makes me think that it would be good to be still with him. I would have liked to get to know him better," Guillaume *, 14 years old, told AFP. Samuel Paty as head teacher.

The college community was also struck by the fact that five students, aged 13 to 15 at the time of the facts, were indicted on suspicion of having designated the teacher to his murderer.

Colleagues and relatives hold a portrait of Professor Samuel Paty during a white march in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, October 20, 2020 Bertrand GUAY AFP / Archives

A sixth student is being prosecuted for "slanderous denunciation", as part of the false news campaign on social networks that led to the assassination.

This teenager, targeted by an exclusion for indiscipline, had lied to her father by assuring to have been sanctioned for having protested against the request of Mr. Paty made to the Muslim students, according to her, to report themselves during her course, which was wrong.

© 2021 AFP