UPDATE FROM FRANCE: NIDRA POLLER
Hervé Morin said it’s time to Israelize the French security apparatus. Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas accuses Nicolas Sarkozy of trying to Guantanomo-ize it. In the July 29th update, I will give a brief outline of the range of debate in France, touching on the secular “high ground,” marked by exquisite concern for democratic principles and the sensitivities of the Muslim community; the Catholic position of pardon and pacifism; opposition proposals for increased security, represented by an interview with the former and potentially future President Sarkozy.
In a condescending article about “bleeding heart France,” Stephen Brown [http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263652/frances-bleeding-heart-stephen-brown] assures us “the only French leader who appears not to have surrendered is Marine Le Pen.” Confusing the president of the Front National with her niece, Marion Maréchal Le Pen—who has indeed announced she will join the National Guard —he blithely delivers us into the hands of the Le Pen party. There is much to be said on this subject, but I already said it in 2014. [Dispatch International, NER]. And, by the way, the Daesh soldiers did not “do a sort of sermon around the altar in Arabic.” They swore an oath [serment]. It matters. At least to me, it matters to get things straight.
And now, two days after the atrocity committed in the St. Etienne du Vouvray church, the answers keep turning into questions. I do not have boots on the ground. I sift through the widest range of secondary sources, doing my utmost to sift out nuggets of reality from the sludge of approximations.
For example: the longwinded centrist François Bayrou (who supported François Hollande in 2012) is outraged at the absence of protection of the targeted church, situated, he says, right near a Salafist mosque. But, objects a journalist reporting on the affair, Professor Bayrou is mistaken: the mosque near this church is not Salafist. It’s another mosque near another church in the town that, sadly, had donated a piece of its land for construction of the mosque. God’s little acre? So there are two churches and two mosques for a population of 30,000? Latifa ibn Zlaten whose son Imad was executed by Mohamed Merah in 2012, lives nearby, the memorial service for her son was held in that mosque, built on land donated by the churchand, she says, it’s not extremist. Christians and Muslims get along beautifully. Mohammed Karabila, president of the mosque is absolutely disgusted by these accusations. Everything is done in his mosque, he says, to encourage worshippers to be good citizens, good neighbors, respectful and diligent..
Interviewed by Causeur magazine, a schoolteacher with more than 20 years’ experience in St. Etienne du Vouvray and a nearby commune, testifies to the gradual, inexorable Salafization of local Muslims. The vast majority of children in the public schools are Muslim. Demands for sharia compliance increase and intensify. Dozens of young people have joined or tried to join the Caliphate. The local convert Maxime Huchard is a notoriously cruel Daesh henchman.
In the early 2000s, then Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant (Socialist) dismissed the wave of attacks against Jews as nothing worse than incivilités [rudeness]. The halal butchering of DJ Sébastien Selamn in 2003 was downgraded to an act of jealousy by a psychologically disturbed neighbor. His killer, Adel Amataibou, was never brought to justice. Someone like Adel Kermiche might have beaten up a Jew or thrown a firebomb into a synagogue (if there are any in that town) in those days. Today, he is a soldier of Daesh. He walks into the church around the corner from his family home in a quaint Normandy town and slits the throat of an 86 year-old priest devoted to interfaith dialogue. And there is no end in sight.
One question that had been left hanging has now been answered. Why did the Daesh slaughterers come out of the church after the police had failed in their attempt to enter? They used the hostages as human shields. It didn’t prevent sharpshooters from neutralizing them without harming the hostages.
Today, the second killer has been formally identified as 19 year- old Abdelmalik Nabil Petitjean. The neighbors are dumbfounded. They saw him playing soccer on Sunday. His mother says he’s not a terrorist, he’s an angel. He wasn’t religious. Had no criminal record. Perfectly integrated. The name—Petitjean– and the features on his photo ID suggest he is “mixed.”
On June 29th Turkish authorities notified the French—two weeks after the fact– that Petitjean had tried to join the caliphate. They gave his name, but not his photo. He was flagged as a security risk. An unidentified foreign intel service alerted the French, around the 22nd of July, that a French jihadist was likely to commit an attack in the coming days, perhaps with an accomplice. They gave a photo but no name. The alert was sent out. But Petitjean wasn’t identified as the suspect until after the priest had been killed and the parishioner stabbed. His ID was found in Adel Kermiche’s room.
If all of the above is accurate, why didn’t the police find Petitjean sometime between the 29th of June and the 22nd of July? If they had his name they could find his ID, his address, his room, his hidden keffieh, koran, and lethal projects. The answer might be that there are so many flags, they just hadn’t gotten around to it. I don’t know. I can only wonder.
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