Yesterday morning, a Régie Ligne d’Azur bus was targeted by projectiles in the Las Planas neighborhood of Nice. Early in the afternoon, Notre Dame du Port Church was vandalized, with furniture and candles overturned and broken. Finally, last Saturday, a shopkeeper was beaten by a group of young minors for refusing them entry into his store.
Christian Estrosi, Deputy Mayor of Nice and President of the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis, is scandalized by these gratuitous and violent acts, wishes to express his outrage, and condemns them with the utmost rigor. Moreover, this is further compounded when one of these acts is committed within a place of worship, so symbolic for many residents of Nice.
Of course, there is no room for naivety, and it is our duty to highlight these incidents that clearly demonstrate the presence of pockets of incivility and the necessity of opposing them with all necessary firmness.
However, alongside exemplary severity towards these fools (the term applies both literally and figuratively), there might be something else worth attempting: Why not deploy mobile mediation teams aimed at preventing incivilities and acts of violence? Sometimes the carrot is better than the stick, and both carrot and stick are not mutually exclusive!
For instance, we believe, with admiration for the first and respect for the second, that a Father Fiorini might sometimes be a better educator than Inspector X or Y!!!
