Tagged: Bataclan Theatre slaughter

Paris marks first anniversary of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed 130

(SUN) — PARIS — It’s hard to pin down just where the city falls in the five stages of grief a year after the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people.

The country continues to shuffle between bargaining, depression and anger in a year punctuated by rising racial tensions, a major economic hit, and another deadly attack.

So the new normal in Paris serves as a subliminal but constant reminder that we are still officially under a state of emergency.

It’s now normal to come across groups of armed military soldiers patrolling the city streets, striking a jarring contrast against the picturesque, elegant Parisian backdrop.

It’s now normal to be subject to bag checks when entering department stores, some grocery stores, museums, and major public events.

And it’s now normal for subway commuters to be a little more patient with the frequent delays caused by precautionary investigations into suspicious packages.

Anna Escu, 25, recounts an anecdote about how she and a friend were having a drink on an outdoor terrace a few weeks ago, when suddenly a thunderously loud rumble pierced the air.

“Everyone on the terrace just panicked because it sounded like gunfire,” she said.

It turned out to be a man dragging a large garbage bin down the stairs.

“We would never have reacted like that two years ago.” Escu also admits to adopting new habits, including avoiding large crowds and refraining from using her smartphone on the streets. “I’m more vigilant and observant than before, especially in places like train stations and airports.”

But beyond the small inconveniences the locals have been quick to accept, the events of Nov. 13, 2015 have also blown the lid off a bubbling cauldron of race-related tensions in France that extend beyond Islamophobic sentiments.

In the days immediately following the deadly attacks, the number of Muslim-related hate crimes shot up around the country. The same pattern emerged following the attack in Nice on Bastille Day which killed 86 people.

When the controversy over the burkini ban broke out this summer it divided the nation, with proponents and opponents on both sides making heated arguments.

And the dismantling of migrant camps in Calais and Paris in recent weeks and the relocation of migrants and refugees to different parts of France prompted whole villages to protest their arrival.

It’s this wave of racist and anti-immigrant sentiment that Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN), the country’s far-right party, hopes will materialize into France’s own version of Brexit and the U.S. election when the French head to the polls next spring.

Because Donald Trump’s victory delivered a boost for Le Pen, whose political narrative mirrors that of the new president-elect: a rebellion against the elite, champion of the white, working middle class, suppression of immigration in France, and change.

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In France, the religious war few wish to face

(GATESTONE INSTITUTE) — The remains of St. Denis, the patron saint of Paris, who was decapitated in the year 250 during the brutal pagan persecution of Christians, lie north of the French capital in the basilica that bears his name.

The church is historically noteworthy as the first proper work of Gothic architecture, a style influenced by the Crusades. The basilica is now a rarely visited Parisian landmark, lying as it does within the profoundly Islamized enclave of Seine-Saint-Denis.

“You Christians, you kill us,” were the words of the ISIS knifeman who slit the throat of 85-year old Father Jacques Hamel. The elderly priest officiating at the altar of the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray — a mere three kilometres from the centre of Rouen in Normandy — was slain on July 25, as the two terrorists also took nuns hostage. The terrorists were then shot by police.

On August 5, police swept down on a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is the Greatest”] on the Champs-Élysées, the famous central thoroughfare of the capital of France. Video of the arrest shows passers-by: veiled Muslims, tourists, and presumably indigenous French men and women.

Both of these incidents, when aligned with recent mass outrages across France, including the Bataclan Theatre slaughter on November 13, and the mass carnage caused by a jihadist plot in Nice on July 14, point to a startling reality.

Despite the rhetoric by the government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls on removing dual nationality from those guilty of terrorism offenses and closing extremist mosques (20 of France’s 2,500 alleged mosques have been closed down to date), the violent consequences of jihadism are a daily reality and concern stalking the heart of most French metropolitan districts.

At 7.5% of the population, Muslims in France make up the highest concentration of Muslims of any country in Europe, according to Pew Research.

For decades, those warning of the inevitable consequences of mass Muslim immigration, during a time in history when Islamic fundamentalist doctrine was on the rise worldwide, have been maligned, prosecuted, imprisoned or assassinated.

With the security infrastructure now proving inadequate to cope with the sheer scale of enthusiasm for religious war amongst those Islamists born in France, and those able to enter the country — thanks to the open border policies of the EU — the threat continues to increase day by day.

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