Many things are to be said on the attacks that happened in Paris on November 13. It seems natural on the one hand to want to write about it—in an attempt to rationalise the horror—whilst on the other hand an inner voice tells me ‘too soon’. I have been fighting these two contradictory feelings over the past weeks as many other French people, or in fact anyone closely enough associated with our country and our culture to feel a similar sense of despair.
I don’t want to get into the origin of the attacks—whether security services failed to respond in time, whether politicians have to be blamed or whether—as we sometimes hear it—the Muslim population of France should apologise for crimes they have not committed. I rather want to speak about my personal reaction at the time.
I learnt about the shootings on my way to a party. It was still very early in the evening and the BBC alert at the time did not report any casualties. We were at this stage totally unaware of the terrorist nature of the attack. I went on to my party and checked my phone a bit later that night. That’s when I learnt that over 100 people had died. It felt surreal for a few seconds and then I just felt extremely uncomfortable. How could I be having fun when people had been murdered in my capital city? I almost felt guilty. Although we were all having fun at this point of the night, all my friends were very supportive and totally understood why I wanted to rush back home.
The first thing I did when back to my room was sending messages to people I knew lived in the area to check on them. I then turned on the TV and found myself unable to put myself to sleep. I could not take my eyes away from the terrible images that were thrown at the public.
The unease dragged on for a couple more days, but I have to say that all my friends—they know who they are—have been very supportive at the time. Even people I did not know very well showed support via simple but very sweet messages. Queens’ has been wonderful. We received very rapidly the authorisation to hang off the French flag from the mathematical bridge—which made me go very emotional because I had never thought about uniting these two symbols that mean so much to me. JCR President Jessica Tray’s presence was very much appreciated.
The events made many people go through overwhelming times—and I am no exception to this. However, I was lucky not to live through the days that followed the attacks. The atmosphere got gloomier in our country and the morale of the people is truly affected.
There is only one deep thought I would like to share on the attacks—again related to how I lived through these tough days. Many people asked me why we did not decided to hang off a Lebanese flag from the bridge too—in reference to the attack that happened the day before in Beirut—or in fact from all countries that have been affected by terrorism. Their message was straightforward: by denying the right of other civilian casualties to be remembered in the same way as French casualties, you are hereby challenging basic conceptions of human rights: a western life matters more than any other. Although the attack might here be a bit harsher than what it actually intended to, I nonetheless believe that it sheds light on the issue in a stimulating way.
First, there was no intention to undermine terrorist attacks that had happened elsewhere. I can understand the unease though in regard to the unanimous international messages that have reached the French people in the hours following the shootings. To this day, many world leaders, including Obama, refer to the attacks as to ‘what happened in Paris’. I think the French still perceive themselves as a nation having to deliver a messianic message to the rest of the world. Hazareesingh’s recent How the French Think channels this very well: they stand for an ideal that is bigger than who they actually are. It is therefore unsurprising for other nations to identify to Paris: democracy, peace and a certain art de vivre has been hurt on November 13. It will take time to heal but no doubt the French will soon again puzzle the world with their ability to take seriously meaningless events whilst dealing frivolously with important ones.
Charles Bonfils-Duclos