6 French teens convicted for role in teacher's beheading

A French juvenile court on Friday convicted six teenagers for their roles in the 2020 beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamic extremist, an attack that shocked the country and shone a light on the real-world dangers of online hate speech.

Paty, 47, was killed outside his school in a Paris suburb by 18-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a young Chechen who had become radicalised, who was shot dead by police soon after the attack.

Paty had used the caricatures from Charlie Hebdo magazine as part of an ethics class to discuss free speech laws in France, where blasphemy is legal and cartoons mocking religious figures have a long history.

Most Muslims avoid depictions of prophets, considering them to be blasphemous.

Among those on trial was a teenage girl who had allegedly told her parents Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the caricatures and that the teacher punished her for accusing him of antiMuslim sentiment.