Frédéric Boisseau, Franck Brinsolaro, Cabu, Elsa Cayat, Charb, Honoré, Bernard Maris, Ahmed Merabet, Mustapha Ourrad, Michel Renaud, Tignous, Wolinski, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab and François-Michel Saada… I want to say their names because I realize we remember the names of their killers more than theirs.
It has been ten years since their destinies were tragically cut short by Islamist terrorism, on January 7, 8 and 9, 2015. In the newspaper Charlie Hebdo first, by targeting freedom of expression, then in Montrouge by targeting the police and at the Hyper Cacher at the Porte de Vincennes to attack the Jews, hatred turned the entire nation upside down. whole. And yet, we held on.
Certainly, struck in the heart, bruised in its flesh, the society, whose passivity we had deplored for too long but also and above all, the deafening and complicit silence, stood up, to shout its anger, its brotherhood and say no to terrorism .
On January 11, in an unprecedented surge of solidarity and fraternity, the French wrote History. Shouting “Je suis Charlie”, “I am a policeman” and “I am Jewish” they stood up as one man to recall their attachment to the values that made France: “Liberty, equality, fraternity.” For too long, we had forgotten fraternity, carrying only freedom and equality – even egalitarianism – as our standard. However, how is it possible to think of France without fraternity, without respect, without the possibility of meeting the Other? Of course, not everyone has been Charlie ; not everyone added the fact of being Jewish, and we must continue to regret it here, but the momentum was there. Some have the weakness to still think today that the emotion would undoubtedly have been different if the only target had been the Hyper Cacher. This was Marceline Loridan’s terrible question on the radio the next day, and to ask the question is to already answer it. But that’s how it is. The French marched that day, with the whole world at their side. And the State, the government, the police were also there in such rare unity with touching scenes of fraternization.
“Without forgetting anything about these tragic moments, we got up to better understand the future”
Together, we reaffirmed that we had France as our hope. Faithful to Deuteronomy which teaches us: “Behold, I place before you life and death, good and evil […] and you will choose life so that you and your descendants can live”, life has resumed its course. Without forgetting anything about these tragic moments, we got up to better understand the future. And finally act. Act to fight, to face terrorism and all those who exploit and misuse religion to kill in the name of God, wherever they come from and whoever they are. Take action, never to leave anyone on the sidelines of life. . It is moreover with infinite gratitude and recognition that the Jewish community received the words of the then Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, who declared: “Without the Jews of France, France would not be France.”
With determination, it was therefore a question of creating a dynamic of training, in order to generate a virtuous circle because the return of confidence was at this price. It was necessary to redouble our efforts in order to ardently defend everywhere and at all times the humanist and universal values that are ours, and in particular secularism. Because fraternity cannot be real without secularism and it is important to build a society that knows how to remember both what we suffered ten years ago and how we recovered by being “the guardians of our brothers” , according to the biblical formula.
And because we know the strength of hope in a society, with Bernanos, let us remember that “to find hope, we must have gone beyond despair. When we go until the end of the night, we find another dawn.”