Four months later, a national tribute placed “under the sign” of the “fight against anti-Semitism”. This Wednesday, February 7, Emmanuel Macron will salute at the Hôtel National des Invalides the memory of the “42 fellow citizens who died” in the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7.
This tribute will take place in the presence of the families of the victims, many of them transported from Israel by a special flight. This solemn moment will also concern six injured French people, the four freed Hamas hostages, and three French people “still missing and presumed hostages”, specified the Elysée, which explained that it had no information to provide concerning the latter, in particular “in terms of proof of life”.
Emmanuel Macron’s entourage assured AFP that this tribute “paid to Jewish French citizens” will be “placed under the universal sign of the fight against anti-Semitism and through it […] all forms of hatred, racism and oppression against minorities”. Neither Israeli President Isaac Herzog, invited but absent for “agenda reasons”, nor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be present. The Hebrew State will be represented by the Israeli Embassy in Paris.
Bring victims out of anonymity
Behind these 42 deaths, making this attack one of the bloodiest against French citizens in the last decade, this tribute will also put a name and a face to these victims. At Les Invalides, each of them will be represented by a photograph with their name.
The AFP carried out research work in order to remove the anonymity of numerous French or Franco-Israeli victims. Among them, for example, we find Marc Perez, 51, who went to pick up his daughter at the Nova festival where Hamas terrorists appeared on October 7 and caused nearly 360 victims on the spot or on the road among those trying to escape. escape. At this festival, many other Franco-Israelis were also assassinated, such as Avidan Torgeman, born in Bordeaux and co-organizer of the event; Céline Ben David-Naga, a young mother who left her six-month-old baby with her husband to go party for a few hours but never returned; Sigal Levy, 31, social worker and festival volunteer for the Elem association helping young people in difficulty, and who was due to get married in January; or Eric Peretz, who took his severely disabled daughter Ruth, 17, to concerts and festivals, and whose bodies were identified several days after October 7.
Without forgetting the Franco-Israeli women in the attacks in the different villages. On Kibbutz Nir Oz, Carmela Dan, 80, and her granddaughter Noya Dan, 12, were murdered, while another part of the family was kidnapped. Originally from Neuilly-sur-Seine, Sabine Taasa, 48, who lived in the village of Netiv Haassara, also died on October 7. Her husband died when he threw himself on a grenade to save his two small children, injured but alive, while his older son Or, 17, was shot dead on a beach. Roni Levy, born in Algeria in 1943, had lived for more than 60 years on Kibbutz Beeri and was murdered in his house after trying to defend himself with his pistol, saving his wife Noa, who was wounded in the shoulder.
Controversy over the presence of LFI elected officials
However, this ceremony has been the subject of political controversy for several days. Last Tuesday, five families of Franco-Israeli victims wrote a letter to the Elysée asking that the presence of La France insoumise be “banned” at Les Invalides, in particular because of its refusal to qualify Hamas as a “terrorist” group. “Between indecency, lack of respect, relativism and negationism, La France Insoumise and its spokespersons have distinguished themselves by extremely serious comments since the pogrom of October 7,” write the families, accusing LFI of bearing “a very heavy responsibility in the ‘explosion of Judeophobia’ in France.
An accusation refuted by the party, Manuel Bompard estimating that certain passages in their letter “appear to attribute to La France insoumise positions that it has never defended”. I “intend to participate” in the national tribute, the LFI coordinator said on Sunday. It is “normal for the nation to pay tribute to the victims” and ensures it “shares” the “pain” and “grief” of the families, without “the desire to mix a national tribute with a political moment”. The leader of the rebellious deputies, Mathilde Panot, also said that she wanted to go to the tribute to the Invalides.
The Élysée, for its part, kicked in, assuring this Monday that it was a “republican ceremony” to which, according to the protocol in force since 1989, all parliamentarians are invited. He also stressed that an “extremely reinforced” security system would be put in place. “It is up to everyone to assess the appropriateness or not of their presence since the families spoke out and expressed strong emotion,” said an advisor to the president, however, referring the decision to the LFI elected officials.
The arrival of the LFI deputies nevertheless provoked numerous reactions within the majority and the right. The boss of the LR deputies in the National Assembly, Olivier Marleix, said he understood the “emotion” and the “discomfort” of the families “as La France insoumise has trivialized this terrorist attack”, but also estimated that the movement of radical left can participate “as a sign of repentance”. On February 7, “we must speak only, and only, about the victims of Hamas terrorist attacks. Let’s not let this moment be taken away,” commented government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot on LCI.
A “memorial time” envisaged for the French people who died in Gaza
La France insoumise has in fact once again underlined its attachment to the organization of a tribute for the French victims of the Israeli bombings in Gaza. The French authorities have not given an assessment on this point, but announced on October 31 that two French children had been killed in the Palestinian enclave. Sources close to the case then indicated that their mother was the subject of an international arrest warrant as part of an anti-terrorism investigation.
The Elysée was favorable to this proposal, and declared this Monday to consider a “memorial time” in the future for the “French victims of the bombings in Gaza”. A tribute which will not be held this Wednesday, the presidency having made it clear that the ceremony on February 7 at Les Invalides “aims to pay tribute to the victims of a major terrorist attack committed by Hamas”, she said, careful not to “mix the two types of victims”.
“Nevertheless, it is obvious that we owe the same emotion and the same dignity to the French victims of the bombings in Gaza, and this tribute will be paid to them at another time,” assured the Élysée in response to a journalist, recalling that Emmanuel Macron had repeatedly insisted that “a life is worth a life”. LFI immediately “welcomed” this decision. “We will fully associate ourselves with this tribute. We must pay tribute to all the victims of war crimes in the Middle East,” Mathilde Panot told AFP.