In February 1976, following the arrest of Patrick Henry for the kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Philippe Bertrand, the presenter of the 8 p.m. news on TF1, Roger Gicquel, opened the newspaper with these words which will remain in the History: “France is afraid.” Few people remember what happened next: “Yes, France is afraid and we are afraid, and it’s a feeling that we already have to fight, I think. Because we can see that it’s coming on mad desires for expeditious justice, immediate and direct revenge.” Forty-six years later, we feel like we’re reliving the same streak following the barbaric murder of 12-year-old Lola. The media reactions calling for an expeditious trial have the same hints of private revenge, forgotten justice, the end of the rule of law.
The various facts tell the intimate state of a society, like a barometer of violence. In 1976, there were a plethora of child kidnappings for ransom. Today, gratuitous murders and rapes seem to parade more and more in the headlines of the press every day, provoking the same fear, which can only lead to the same consequences: a denial of justice.
No matter the unbearable violence
The rape, torture and murder suffered by the very young Lola were the occasion for a political pass of arms between the right and the left. The question of political recovery seemed to occupy the political and media class more than the death of a teenager. Because the alleged murderer is Algerian and under an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF), it became impossible for the left and feminist organizations to react, sympathize and demand a minute of silence in the Assembly. national.
I do not remember so many precautions when it came to the appalling murder of George Floyd, which was largely taken over by the left and anti-racist and feminist associations, which pushed indecency to the point of seeking – and finding – a French equivalence in order to condemn colonization, the white man, patriarchy, Islamophobia, etc. But as the left has abandoned the nation, the flag, patriotism, it has chosen to abandon Lola to the extreme right, so as not to mix things up. What did the reality of the unenforced OQTF matter, what did the unbearable violence matter. No political party, no politician, no association, no neo-feminist, no minister has lived up to the tragedy. The spectacle was indecent and unworthy, as the anti-immigrant haste of some made the short scale of the anti-racist ideology of others.
Gravediggers of the rule of law
The real is stubborn, it often comes to remind us that we cannot play with fire with impunity. In Roanne, a father and three of his friends beat up a 16-year-old unaccompanied minor, suspected of having raped his 6-year-old daughter. The unaccompanied minor had arrived in France in September and was staying a few meters from the pavilion where he allegedly committed the sexual assault. The minor was indicted as well as the father of the family and his acolytes, who do not regret anything. Barely known news item, prosecutor, magistrates, associations stood up to condemn the law of retaliation, to praise justice and the presumption of innocence. It is legitimate.
But where have they been, all these white knights of justice, for five years? Where were they stashed when it was no longer a big deal to kick a man out on numerical charges? Where were they when, paralyzed, they dared not contradict the neo-feminist doxa, and looked elsewhere when they heard the presumption of innocence questioned? Where were they when justice was questioned, when justice was reduced to a weapon in the hands of the patriarchy, when it was no longer a question of judging sexual and gender-based violence in court but on social networks or in obscure and secret commissions, hidden behind the high walls of political parties?
By bringing discredit on justice, by repeating that it is incapable of condemning rape, by denying it in the name of a fight which is no longer anything more than a springboard to accede to power, the gravediggers of the State of right suddenly notice their hands stained with blood. “The court renders judgments and not services”, said Baron Séguier, first president of the royal court of Paris. It’s time to remember that.