I often seethe at the indifference of the world displayed by French society, French public opinion, in short, by the French. Well, we must believe that the world is not resentful because since yesterday, manifestations of sympathy, both large and small, have multiplied internationally.
From the outset, I was deeply moved by Barack Obama’s extraordinary responsiveness and his brotherly “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” pronounced in French. This emotion was further intensified by the blue-white-red illumination of the One World Trade Center spire, a link between the Paris tragedy and 9/11.
A little later, the personal and the international entwined with a photo sent by our Australian friends John and Robyn of the Sydney Opera House (where we had seen Carmen a few years ago), also lit in tricolor. A photo that would immediately circulate on our social networks.
Then came the comfort from some of my distant Mottard cousins from Argentina, the solidarity expressed by a former Turkish student, and the tiny yet symbolically heavy message from our friend Nazif, an Albanian Muslim from Macedonia living in Germany who doesn’t speak French: “Je sui Paris” (sic).
Our Tunisian or Franco-Tunisian friends were also very present, probably galvanized by François Hollande’s maintenance of their president’s visit to the Élysée this afternoon. An occasion to recall the heavy toll paid by this courageous country to the barbarity of radical Islamists.
This world that was Paris today is probably the one to whom an anonymous pianist wanted to pay tribute by playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on the sidewalk opposite the Bataclan around 1 PM.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Imagine all the people,
Living for today…
by Patrick Mottard
