PARIS • France was set to pay tribute yesterday to a history teacher beheaded for showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in a free speech lesson, a gruesome attack that has shocked the country and prompted a government crackdown on radical Islam.
Seven people, including two students, were due to appear before an anti-terror judge for a decision on criminal charges over the killing of 47-year-old history teacher Samuel Paty last Friday.
France's anti-terror prosecutor said yesterday that the two students had pointed out the teacher to his killer in return for €300 to €350 (S$482 to $562).
The killer, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, gave part of the sum to a student outside the school, asking him to identify the teacher, prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told a news briefing. Others joined them, and Anzorov offered to share the rest of the money, Mr Ricard said.
In return, he received a description of Mr Paty from two of the students who stayed with him for more than two hours waiting for the teacher to appear. Other students walked away. The killer told the teenagers he was planning to "humiliate and strike" the teacher, and force him to apologise for showing the cartoons.
The two students who allegedly helped the killer, aged 14 and 15, will be prosecuted, Mr Ricard said.
Police have carried out dozens of raids since the killing, while the government has ordered the six-month closure of a mosque outside Paris. It also plans to dissolve a group that it said supported Palestinian militant group Hamas.
"Our fellow citizens expect actions," President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.
Mr Paty was attacked shortly after leaving the junior high school where he taught in the suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine outside Paris. He had been the subject of an online hate campaign after he showed students cartoons of the Prophet in a civics class - the same images that sparked a bloody assault on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo five years ago.
Mr Macron was to attend an official memorial with Mr Paty's family and some 400 guests at Sorbonne University in Paris yesterday evening, where he was set to posthumously award the teacher France's highest order of merit, the Legion d'Honneur.
Nine of 16 people held over the murder were released from custody late on Tuesday, including four members of Anzorov's family and three students.
Among those set to appear before a judge was a disgruntled parent from Mr Paty's school, who had fired up anger about the teacher's lesson through messages on social media, urging "mobilisation" against the teacher.
The parent had exchanged messages with Anzorov via WhatsApp in the days leading up to the murder. The material he uploaded was widely shared, including by a mosque in the Paris suburb of Pantin, which the government closed yesterday for six months for spreading material likely to provoke "hatred and violence".
Mr Macron has also announced that a pro-Hamas group called the Sheikh Yassin Collective would be dissolved for being "directly implicated" in the murder.
The group's founder, Islamist radical Abdelhakim Sefrioui, is among those in custody over the murder.
The French government has earmarked another 50-odd other organisations with links to "radical Islam" for dissolution. Also in custody are three of Anzorov's friends - one of whom allegedly drove him and another who allegedly accompanied him to buy a weapon.
On Tuesday, in a phone call with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, Mr Macron asked Moscow for stronger cooperation in the fight against terror. Russia has rejected any association with the killer.
Meanwhile, Mr Darmanin said yesterday that he had asked the local authorities to put mosques in the cities of Bordeaux and Beziers in south-western France under police protection following threats or acts of violence.
Separately, French regional newspaper La Nouvelle Republique received threats on social media after it published a caricature of Prophet Muhammad on its front page, one of its journalists said yesterday.
Mr Paty's killing has prompted an outpouring of emotion and solidarity in France, with tens of thousands taking part in rallies countrywide over the weekend.
Thousands more took part in a silent march in honour of the teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on Tuesday.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS