RUTHFULLY YOURS

UPDATE July 27

Adel Kermiche made his first attempt to join the caliphate in March 2015. Alerted by his family, authorities picked him up in Germany and sent him back to France where he was placed under surveillance. In May 2015, he left again, this time using his cousin’s ID. He was picked up in Turkey, sent back to France via Geneva , and placed in detention awaiting trial on terrorist charges. He reportedly shared a cell with a 32 year-old Salafist. In early March 2016 the investigating judge responded favorably to his request for parole. The higher judicial authority objected, a 3-magistrate appeals panel overruled the authorities and released him on parole with the array of restrictions and requirements detailed above. (correction: he only had to report to the police once a week, not every day.)

One could write in advance the first reports about this jihad attack or the next one. The perpetrator(s) is always a nice guy, maybe a bit rough around the edges but friendly, likes music and partying. Nothing but absolutely really I mean completely totally nothing would have even slightly hinted that he might commit such untold violence. He wasn’t even religious!  N.B. Islam is a religion of peace, has nothing to do with jihad, sharia, throat-slitting and other mass murders. But the sign that the suspect wasn’t suspicious is…he wasn’t religious. And what happens, two days later, when reporters get to the ‘hood? A year ago or two years ago, x changed. Grew a beard. Talked about nothing but jihad, sharia, Daesh, the koran, hung around the mosque, acted scary.

The second church killer is almost identified. They say it took this long to verify his identity because his facial features were obliterated by commando gunfire, he has never been fingerprinted because he has no criminal record. Though he was flagged as a security risk. Described as “brilliant,” he just earned his baccalauréat degree in business. He was living with his family in Aix les Bains. His mother swears he is not a terrorist but for some reason the specialized terrorist unit had been frantically trying to locate him a few days before the church attack. The “wanted” bulletins described him as dangerous and likely to go into action. Imminently. He left home on Monday, telling his mother he was going to visit a cousin in Nancy. Called home on the eve of the church slaughter. Then nothing. Named by sources as  Abdel Malik P. he is probably the accomplice seen in a video testament sent by the pair to the Daesh agency (AMAQ) and proudly displayed.  

Debate, as I said yesterday, is raging, and everything that can be said within the limits of decency is being said.   The government is on the defensive, inside information is spilling out on all sides, the president, the PM, and the Interior Minister go from TV studios to church services to stand-up declarations in front of their palatial ministries but nothing will stem the tide.

An air hammer was pounding away just 10 steps from the kiosque where I bought Le Monde this afternoon so I could read former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s interview. I commiserated with the gentleman, snug in his stand. “It must be terrible to have that noise all day long.” Do you know what he replied? “Ahhh, with the president we have…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. What’s an air hammer compared to a monotone declaration from François Hollande.

But that doesn’t mean the government is doing nothing! If that were the case, we’d be no better off than the Yazidis in Syria. In a last ditch attempt to save its honor or maybe its skin, our government pleads for national unity. This is no time, they say, for stoking controversy.  We are doing everything that can be done, they plead, and then duck behind the Constitution. Stricter measures that just might reduce the risks are brushed off as offenses to the highest democratic principles of la République. TV news speakers throw in a few words about that fabulous national unity displayed after the November 13^th attacks. What went wrong?

What went wrong is that the exceptional determination displayed by the president and his crew, coupled with an exceptional willingness to entertain proposals from all political parties with no exceptions, ended up in something like split pea soup.  And yet, measures are taken, plots are foiled. It’s not enough.

This morning, the president of our secular government invited representatives of all the major religions for a private meeting followed by one of those stand-up declarations in the paved courtyard of the presidential palace. Ahmet Ogras, vice president of the CFCM, a lopsided Muslim umbrella organization, unsurprisingly condemned the massacre and declared that Islam is a religion of peace and religious leaders of all faiths in France have excellent relations.  Dalil Boubaker, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, did express a need for reflection and reforms of Islam, and the hope that this could come from French Islam. Monseigneur Vingt-Trois, speaking for Catholics, rejected any notion of combat. Our only arms, he said, are faith and fraternity. We will not close the doors of our churches or protect them with armed guards. In fact, the killers did not have to break into the church at St. Etienne du Vouvray; church doors are always open in the daytime. Buddhist and Greek Orthodox representatives stood silently in the back row. Chief Rabbi Haim Korsias and Joël Mergui, president of the Consistoire, standing next to the VP of the CFCM, did not speak. Why?  Were they asked to remain silent? Or did they prefer to stay out of a clash that concerned Muslims and Catholics? [photo http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/contre-le-terrorisme-le-message-de-fraternite-des-religieux-recus-a-l-elysee-27-07-2016-5998087.php]

I filled in the blanks: “misguided” acolytes of the religion of peace slaughter a priest in the sanctuary of the church. Christians, true to their faith, respond to murder with messages of love and peace. And Jews, erstwhile victims of Christian persecution, Nazi extermination and, now, Islamic genocidal hatred, are taught to choose life. If someone comes to kill you, stop him in his tracks, kill him. On the international level, Islamic nations implode, send volcanic flows of refugees mixed with assassins, carry their cosmic distress wherever they go. Christian Europe tries desperately to manage jihad conquest as if it were banditry and maintain its democratic principles on high while they are being bashed around on street level. And Israel fights back.

Hervé Morin of the center right UDI party, former Defense Minister in the Sarkozy government, says “We have to Israelize our security policy.”

Tomorrow: a review of the major trends in the vigorous ongoing debate.