It cannot be denied: this attack will remain the milestone between before and after. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Life indeed resumes its course and its rights, as evidenced by the return of people on the beaches and at the terraces of cafes and restaurants, but the memory of what happened will never fade from the minds of those who experienced it.
Everyone should have participated in this national mourning with sobriety and dignity, with a sense of “pietas” and emotional participation towards their neighbor, whom the Gospel calls “brother.”
To this feeling should have been added that of “gravitas” from those elected to public office.
As Cicero said, “I was then looking for a consul, a man who could at least, like a stump and a trunk, stand tall and bear the emblem of the consulship.”*
Unfortunately, that was not the case.
On the contrary, there remains this striking lack of psychology and esprit de corps from some politicians who, during these days of mourning, while weeping for the victims, consoling their families, and caring for the wounded to prevent further loss, repeatedly appeared before the microphones and television cameras to spread their empty formulas, straight from a poor rhetoric manual.
Instead, they could have — it would even have been their duty to do so — understood and analyzed the facts in order to best respond, with rational and intelligent arguments, to demagogy and incompetence.
But no, the opportunity was too good not to be seized, to advance elements of the electoral campaign and to fuel propaganda arguments. May 2017 is indeed too distant a date for some!
Yet, we should look at these dark hours with clarity. The answer does not lie in measures that would limit public freedoms and republican traditions. When we place them at the top of the values hierarchy, relegating rights to a contingent role, we are already in the antechamber of fascism.
We leave to the experts and scholars the debate — in which their ego finds its full dimension — to determine whether we are facing, or not, an Islamist challenge. Whether it is due to the Islamization of radicality or the radicalization of Islam.
The truth must be told: these acts of guerrilla warfare, as dramatic as they are, have no chance of achieving strategic outcomes. They remain atrocious massacres that should not be endorsed: running people over with a truck is nothing like the act of a “heroic soldier,” but rather a “cowardly man.”
What must be asserted with force is that France, armed with its principles of Liberty and Equality, will overcome this challenge by imposing the strength of democratic culture, its republican and collective values, and above all, Fraternity.
