What happened in Paris yesterday was horrific; a man is dead; others are fighting for their lives; a 12-year-old girl was shot eight times.
And before the blood was even dry, Macron was on camera declaring it “a racist terrorist attack.” Declaring that victims were selected for the colour of their skin and their religion he called it “a turning point.”
Then he said this:
“It is the first time we have had a terrorist act that was planned to kill our
compatriots, our children, based on the colour of their skin or their religion.”
The FIRST time? Let that sink in. That single sentence should make every French citizen furious.
- So Toulouse wasn’t a turning point? When Mohamed Merah walked into a Jewish school and executed a rabbi and three small children point-blank, one of them just three years old?
- Charlie Hebdo wasn’t a turning point? When Islamists massacred journalists for drawing cartoons?
- Hyper Cacher wasn’t a turning point? When four Jews were murdered simply for being Jews while shopping for Shabbat?
- The Bataclan wasn’t a turning point? When 90 young people were slaughtered like animals inside a concert hall?
- Nice wasn’t a turning point? When a truck was driven through families and 86 people were crushed to death, children included?
- Father Jacques Hamel wasn’t a turning point? When his throat was slit at the altar of his own church?
- Samuel Paty wasn’t a turning point? When a teacher was beheaded in the street for showing his class free speech?
- Dominique Bernard wasn’t a turning point?
How many corpses did France have to bury before it counted? How many Jewish children, journalists, shoppers, concertgoers, priests and teachers had to die? And let’s be clear about something else: the investigation into yesterday’s horror is still establishing motive. The facts are still being gathered. Yet Macron already has the narrative, the motive, the moral, and the political lesson ready to go. If the evidence proves racist intent, then condemn it to the fullest extent of the law. Call it what it is. No one will defend it. But do not rewrite French history to do it. Do not insult the memory of the dead to serve today’s narrative.
France changed long ago. The French people know it because they have lived it. They have bled through it. They remember the little girl in Toulouse. They remember the editors slumped over their desks. They remember the hostages in the kosher store. They remember the bodies on the floor of the Bataclan. They remember the strollers shattered on the promenade in Nice. They remember the priest. They remember the teacher. You can try to push those atrocities into the background because they are inconvenient to your politics, but you cannot make a nation forget what it saw with its own eyes. Politicians can rewrite the narrative; they will never rewrite people’s memories - and they will never make France forget its dead.