Organized for 18 years by associations, the tribute to victims of terrorism Monday took a more political tone a few months before the presidential election, bringing together in Paris, Francois Hollande and many opposition leaders.
Under a light rain, hundreds of people flocked shortly before 9am in the gardens of the Intendant at the Invalides, in Paris, the place of the ceremony, full of emotion, organized since 1998 by the associations.
Survivors and relatives of victims of terrorism spoke for the eight attacks since 1989. In the November 13, besides Georges Salines, president of the Association on November 13, a representative of the association Life for Paris, which participated in the organization of the ceremony, read a text citing various victims beginning each time with “I am” , recalling the famous “je Suis Charlie” .
A reform of the compensation system for victims
François Hollande has announced a review of the benefit system , indicating that the Guarantee Fund resources would be “reviewed” and that the state “is in would guarantee the long term” . The head of state also said that it was the “duty of the state to respond to all questions” on “every attack” , “including his own role” . “Once the worst happened, the State must be exemplary in its responses, in its procedures and in its reactions ” , he has told the Invalides, to the families of victims of attacks.
In addition to President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls, many ministers and personalities from all political sides, his face serious, were present for the tribute held within eight months of the presidential election.
The fight against terrorism must become subject
Sitting in the front row, the ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, candidate for the primary from the right, neighbored, his rivals, former prime ministers Alain Juppé and François Fillon, or the president of the Modem, Francois Bayrou. “I expect that families of victims and victims themselves feel better surrounded ” , said the centrist leader.
While the fight against terrorism promises to be one of the key themes of the campaign for 2017, the political class knows that it can not ignore the expectations of victims, both in terms of compensation as the working memory.
The speech of François Hollande, from 10.20am , is highly anticipated, ten months after the very solemn tribute orchestrated by the executive in the courtyard of the Invalides to the victims of the November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis .
The member of the Alpes-Maritimes, Eric Ciotti, claimed on this occasion a national tribute to victims of the bombing in Nice.
“Unparalleled number of victims”
The ceremony “will be as usual, it’s been around 18 years, it was an associative initiative, which we are very attached” , believed, this weekend, Stephane Gicquel, secretary general of the National Federation of Victims of attacks and collective accidents (Fenvac).
Since 1998, the French Association of Victims of Terrorism (AfVT) and Fenvac meet September 19, day of the attack in 1989 against a French DC-10 airliner UTA over Niger in front of the statue -Fontaine of “speech scope” Disable. This is the only Parisian monument dedicated to the victims of terrorism. But since last year, France has slipped into a new era, with “an unprecedented number of victims of terrorism” , said Stephane Gicquel.
On November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis (130 dead), January 15, 2016 in Ouagadougou (29 dead, including two French), on March 13 in Grand-Bassam in Ivory Coast (19 dead, four French), the 22 March in Brussels (32 dead, one French), on 1 June in Gao, Mali (four dead, one French), June 13, a police officer and his wife murdered in their home in Magnanville (Yvelines) on July 14 in Nice ( 86 people killed on the promenade des Anglais). Finally, on 26 July, a priest is murdered in his church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray , near Rouen.
A political subject
And if the threat is “maximum” in France, as in particular insists Manuel Valls and as evidenced by the series of arrests carried out in recent days in connection with projects of jihadist attacks, terrorism is a highly political issue.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited on Saturday in Nice to meet victims of the attack of 14 July, has said finding “intolerable not to know what exactly happened” during the attack of the truck, reactivating criticism launched this summer by some of the opposition against the government.
François Hollande, as the latest polls show would be eliminated in the 1st round of the 2017 presidential election if he was a candidate, arises from his side defender of the rule of law, rejecting any “exceptional state” in reference for example the proposals of some of the right.
