Like a candle in the water

Yesterday evening, at a ceremony in remembrance of the terrible events of 13 November 2015, a fleet of tiny blue-white-red candles glided slowly—softly and silently—across the dark waters of the Saint-Martin Canal in the neighborhood of the Bastille in Paris.

Patrick Jardin had lost his daughter Nathalie, in charge of lighting at the Bataclan. But he was absent from yesterday’s ceremonies. His explanations were terse: “One doesn’t react to kalashnikovs with candles on the water and plaques on the wall.”

He was right in some ways, but wrong in others. Of course we have to track down terrorists and prevent them from harming our societies. This means the use of deadly weapons, not candles. But it doesn’t mean pure vengeance. In any case, yesterday, the people of Paris were not searching for terrorists to be eliminated. Nor were they thinking of criticizing Paris authorities who had not been able to protect all the citizens of the City of Light, including the young lady of the Bataclan lighting. They were simply celebrating in dignity and silence, by means of lit candles, the memory of Nathalie and the other innocent victims of 13 November 2015.

#13Novembre2015 #ParisAttacks

New signpost in Paris

The attacks of 15 November 2016 killed 130 people,
89 of whom died at the Bataclan.
7 attackers were destroyed.

#13Novembre2015 #ParisAttacks

Sting has reopened the Bataclan

We shall always remember the
victims of 13 November 2015.

#Bataclan

La culture sera la plus forte !

Click to enlarge slightly

Permanent imprint

On 9 January 2015, this printing-house at Dammartin-en-Goële in the French countryside (Seine-et-Marne) made an unforgettable impression upon TV-viewers throughout the world. It was the arena of a spectacular standoff between police sharpshooters and two defiant brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, perpetrators of the murders at Charlie Hebdo in Paris on 7 January 2015.

The battered building has been totally renovated. The sparkling premises were inaugurated this morning by François Hollande.

Names and photos of 238 victims of terrorism in France since “Charlie”

Click here to access a block of 238 photos, in alphabetical surname order, with links to brief descriptions of victims of terrorism in France since the massacre at the Charlie offices in Paris on January 7, 2015.

Paris, six months ago

After the terrorist attack, holes left by bullets in the window of
the bar La Bonne Bière were filled with red roses.

Capture of Salah Abdeslam, alive, in Brussels

I'm watching live coverage of police operations in Molenbeek (outskirts of Brussels) where the terrorist Salah Abdeslam was apparently arrested alive about an hour ago. Helmeted riot police are strolling around, accompanied by police dogs, and the atmosphere is electric.

Breaking news 19 h 15. 

Biological test has confirmed the identity of Salah Abdeslam.

Click on the following link to access a video clip of the capture:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2016/03/18/01016-20160318ARTFIG00400-capture-a-molenbeek-abdeslam-detient-les-secrets-du-13-novembre.php

That live capture was great news!

Meanwhile, it's important to get this fellow extradited to France as rapidly as possible, so that he can be safely protected, not only from his friends and enemies, but from himself above all. It would be a terrible pity if he were to be carelessly injured or lost simply because French authorities weren't taking sufficient care of him. In our combat against Daech, this ugly guy is a priceless French asset.

CIA chief: "Paris was a failure of intelligence"

Hopefully, French politicians and security folk will listen attentively to these words from CIA chief John Brennan, who used the CBS show "60 Minutes" to judge the recent terrorist affairs in Paris. He was interviewed by the CBS correspondent Scott Pelley.

John Brennan: Paris was a failure of intelligence. All but one of the eight terrorists were French citizens, trained by ISIS in Syria. They returned, unnoticed, and attacked six locations killing 130 people.

Scott Pelley: What did you learn from Paris?

John Brennan: That there is a lot that ISIL probably has underway that we don't have obviously full insight into. We knew the system was blinking red. We knew just in the days before that ISIL was trying to carry out something. But the individuals involved have been able to take advantage of the newly available means of communication that are--that are walled off, from law enforcement officials.

Scott Pelley: You're talking about encrypted Internet communications.

John Brennan: Yeah, I'm talking about the very sophisticated use of these technologies and communication systems.

Scott Pelley: After Paris you told your people what?

John Brennan: We gotta work harder. We have to work harder. We need to have the capabilities, the technical capabilities, the human sources. We need to be able to have advanced notice about this so that we can take this-- the steps to stop them. Believe me, intelligence security services have stopped numerous attacks-- operatives-- that have been moved from maybe the Iraq to Syria theater into Europe. They have been stopped and interdicted and arrested and detained and debriefed because of very, very good intelligence.

I hardly need to point out that John Brennan was not referring, in that last sentence, to French intelligence.

One Autumn in Paris

This short video presents the singer Louane and the trumpetist Ibrahim Maalouf, who have recorded a powerful memorial song entitled One Autumn in Paris, distributed freely to young students. The poetry comes from the Franco-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf.

Click the YouTube icon

A year ago today, France became forever Charlie

Click here to access the website of Le Parisien, which commemorates the start of a year of terror in France.

Let's start the year at the Moulin Rouge

On French TV during this festive season of the year, we can see a lot of French cancan, often with dancers from the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

Click here if you feel like watching a 6-minute presentation of a couple of authentic and delightful cancan girls from the famous "red windmill" going through their steps.

Trivial little places like that seem to have acquired a more intense and wonderful meaning since our discovery of the mad mob of terrorists who would surely wish to destroy all that. On the contrary, we'll destroy all those Islamic arseholes before they let themselves loose in France for another tragic operation.

French president's determined attempt to legislate on the possible annulation of citizenship for terrorists

In a recent blog post [here], I expressed my shock at finding out that François Hollande imagines seriously that terrorists with dual nationality should be deprived of their French citizenship. This idea seems to go against the grain of the nation's sacred motto:

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

But on second thoughts, the president's unexpected suggestion is nowhere near as bat-shit crazy as I first imagined. In a nutshell, it's surely Hollande's intricate plan to achieve three goals simultaneously:

1 — Make it clear to everybody (including terrorists) that France's Left will go to all imaginable ends to destroy our enemies, including methods that were recently unthinkable.

2 — Invent a trick to annihilate the Extreme Right of Marine Le Pen.

3 — Use that same trick to enable François Hollande to return to power.

When Hollande and his prime minister Manuel Vals first announced the déchéance theme (removal of citizenship), most people were caught unawares, because we weren't quite sure what it was all about. We now realize that this kind of action has already been used, on rare occasions, in French history... with no lasting negative effect upon the moral principles of the nation. We shall see exactly what the president has to say in the context of his televised New Year's speech. The chances are, I think, that he'll throw in a powerful formula, to justify his idea of déchéance :

« A situation exceptionnelle, mesures exceptionnelles »

(when faced with an exceptional situation, adopt an exceptional solution)

Why not? We all recall the terrible terrorists acts of last November, which shocked everybody immensely and meant that nothing would ever be quite the same again. We saw European citizens, some of whom were born in France, taking out weapons to kill young French citizens. And there are no limits to what we must do to combat this exceptional kind of evil.

Final days of the terrorist Abaaoud

Today, there's a short but superb article in the French newspaper Le Parisien describing the final few days of the terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, hiding like a running bushranger on the northern outskirts of Paris before being disintegrated by guns of French police in the ancient suburban city of Saint-Denis. This is the first time that we have a chance of understanding how in fact the police found the evil fellow and finally destroyed him.

http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/attentats-du-13-novembre-20-h-13-le-mardi-abaaoud-sort-de-son-buisson-20-12-2015-5388857.php

Recall the dates of events. The terrorist atrocities took place in Paris on Friday, 13 November 2015. By the end of the weekend, French police were convinced that the ring-leader was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, but they feared that he had probably fled already from France, just as stealthily as he had arrived.

No, he was still well and truly located in France, hiding in scrub in the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers. That dull zone would be the terrorist's rough hideout for his final nights of earthly existence. On Monday, 16 November, a witness became aware of the terrorist's hiding-place, and told the police. The next day, on Tuesday afternoon, 17 November, the police had installed a camera in the area. Just after 8 o'clock in the evening, a young woman arrived at the spot, and started to use her phone. Police recognized instantly the angular profile of Abaaoud's cousin Hasna Aït Boulahcen. During the next five minutes, two men emerged from the bushes, one of whom was clearly Abdelhamid Abaaoud himself: the most wanted man in France.

The police received orders from their headquarters to follow the trio stealthily, without daring to intercept them. Clearly, Abaaoud was wearing a thick vest that surely contained explosives. So, the detectives stood by calmly while the fugitives hailed a taxi, to take them to the nearby suburb of Saint-Denis. There, the trio found their way, at 22 h 14, to the door of a sordid squat.

The rest is known history. For hours, during their last night on earth, the three terrorists were smothered constantly in a hail of police ammunition, and blown to bits. One wonders if they ever realized what had hit them. The next day, disfigured dust-covered bodily remnants of the terrorists could only be identified by means of their DNA.

My simple word of thanks to fellow-citizens

As the festive season approaches, and lots of families in France are installing their Christmas trees and buying presents for their children and family friends (if they're wealthy enough to do so), I would like to convey a simple and sincere word of thanks (even though they don't necessarily read my Antipodes blog) to the men and woman who will be spending their days and nights aboard the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, preparing if not actually manning the aircraft full of bombs for Daech.

Once upon a time, the families of French military folk were constantly worried that their offspring might take dangerous risks and run into trouble in such-and-such a foreign country, far from home. These days, such operational service men and woman are often worried that their families back home might be faced with terrorists risks and troubles. And this kind of thinking enhances their military spirit.

Madonna's presence in Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0w0iOCT100

Garbage in, memories out

You might imagine that these employees in green uniforms, working in Paris, are everyday garbage collectors.

They are, in a sense, but they're operating in a very special context, with strict instructions about the kind of stuff they must collect— written lines of poetry, drawings on paper, photos — and the reasons why that stuff is being collected. They are employed by the Archives of Paris, and they are working against time in the hope of saving for posterity the collection of paper documents left by hosts of sad and shocked people in the wake of the terrorist tragedies of 13 November.

The archivists in charge of this operation need additional working space in their offices to dry out and examine the pile of documents. On the other hand, they do not keep objects such as flags, felt toys and guitars.

Later on, the Archives and the municipality of Paris intend to create a peaceful site (maybe at the Place de la République) where all these documents can be shown to the public.

In the nearby city of Lyon, similar archival operations have been taking place.

Russian dog ready to discover France

The delightful little dog Dobrynya (German Shepherd race), given by Russia to France, to replace the Raid star Diesel killed at Saint-Denis, has recently been delivered to the French embassy in Moscow.

Click to enlarge

I'm convinced that Dobrynya will be happy to settle down in France, where she'll be loved by everybody.