As a discreet person, Isabelle Bernard hasn't felt like "opening up" until now. She is the widow of Dominique Bernard, a literature teacher who was murdered by a jihadist terrorist in front of the high school where he worked, in the town of Arras on October 13, 2023. She still prefers not to speak publicly, but she nevertheless decided, a year after the attack, to talk to Le Monde about the values she and her husband had: "Respect for others and the environment, but also freedom of thought, critical thinking, tolerance, knowledge and emancipation through culture."

How do you feel, one year after the tragedy?

I'm not someone who's fallen apart, and I don't want to fall apart. I'm driven by action, I need to move forward with projects. The massive and widespread support I've received from people close to me, from work, from the town authorities and from anonymous people, has helped me a lot. I have been sent several hundred letters. It's my duty to respond to these people who have also suffered.

Dominique's death left a void and a burden. I live with Dominique's emptiness, an emptiness full of happy memories, full of our rich conversations. But I also feel this responsibility, a responsibility that is not a burden, but comes from the fact that Dominique didn't die of an accident or an illness, but of a terrorist attack. He was murdered because he was a teacher and he embodied the Republic. His assassin, Mohammed Mogouchkov, spoke very harshly about France. I need to defend and spread Dominique's humanist values.

What are those values?

Dominique advocated respect for others and the environment, but also freedom of thought, critical thinking, tolerance, knowledge and freedom through culture. Today, the word "freedom" has taken on a different hue for me. Equality, fraternity and secularism too.

Dominique Bernard came from a family of teachers. Why did he choose this profession? What did it mean to him?

Nothing was more important than books, writing and language. For Dominique, mastery of language meant mastery of thought, and therefore mastery of building the self, of becoming a free individual. He was keen to help his pupils develop their own personality, to give them a taste for reading. In his teaching practice, he liked to use the spoken word. He also had a great sense of humor and enjoyed teasing his pupils. In his classroom, thanks to his highly-developed hearing, he was able to understand students whispering in the back of the class, and sometimes incorporated these stolen snatches of conversation into his lessons.

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