France Observes the 10th Anniversary of the November 13 Attacks

Tomorrow will mark the 10th anniversary of the terror attacks on Paris by Islamic terrorists, including the attack on the Bataclan nightclub. France is increasing its security apparatus in anticipation of another possible attack. In the article below in Le Figaro, a French pollster explains how virtually every part of France, urban, rural etc., has been affected by terrorism, and compares and contrasts how the average Frenchman has reacted to terrorism since November 13, 2015. The results vary depending on whether one lives in large cities or rural parts of France, as well as whether one is on the right or left politically.

The article is translated by Fousesquawk.

“Since 2015, all the familiar landscapes of the French have been hit by Islamic terrorism,” Jerome Fourquet observes

-By Augustin Moriaux

2 hours ago

Le Figaro TV- From Paris to the small church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, passing by the supermarket in Trebes or by the middle school in Bois d’Aulne, the assiduous observer of French fractures looks back on the “kaleidoscope” of Islamist attacks that have not spared “any French landscape since 2015″.

If November 13, 2015, with 130 dead and 413 injured, not forgetting those who never recovered, the broken and bereaved families, constitutes “the peak of Islamist attacks”, the author of French Metamorphoses (Le Sueil) recalls the spread of the terrorist domain since then, on the set of “Points of View” (Le Figaro TV). “When we make a kaleidoscope of Islamist attacks since 2015, we observe that the terrorists targeted the City of Light, the middle school in Bois d’Aulne-that of Samuel Paty- in Conflans-Saint-Honorine, and a supermarket in Trebes, where Arnaud Beltrame and other victims met their death. We also remember the police couple, whose throats were cut in their residence in a residential area in Magnaville in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, a logistical (commercial/transportation) area on the periphery of Lyon, or the little church of the Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray quarter, where Father Hamel also had his throat cut,” says the director of the Department of Opinion and Corporate Strategies of Ifop. A macabre list to which the pollster adds the last earthquake to date, since “in another vein, there was very recently that which had been missing in the ‘portfolio’, the peaceful resort of L’Oleron Island. All in all, the familiar landscapes of the overwhelming majority of the French people have been touched.  

As for the sad anniversary of the Paris attacks, Jerome Fourquet observes that “60% of the French people tell us that November 13 changed forever the way they envision life and the future. Their relationship to risk and ‘living together’, the anxiety now in certain places. Nothing will be like before”. So much so that even 10 years later, 47% of the French people “still feel anger, which shows that this all has not been processed.”

“The more to the right one is, the angrier they are, and the more to the left one is, the more they feel sorrow and solidarity”.

-Jerome Fourquet on Figaro TV

An in-depth study on the perception of the attacks according to geographic zones of those queried reveals a divide between the large cities-including the epicenter of November 13, and rural France. “If we zoom in on eastern Paris, the most impacted by the 2015 attacks, it is pain and sorrow that dominate, more than anger. A sentiment completely different than the France of small towns, rural France, which were not on the front lines. Unsurprisingly, this reflects politics.“The more to the right one is, the angrier they are, and the more to the left one is, the more they feel sorrow and solidarity”, underlines Jerome Fourquet, guest of Anne-Emmanuelle Isaac.