It’s hard to believe that it’ s exactly one week ago yesterday that the dreadful events started with the attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in the 11th arrondissement. Then last Friday came the assault on the kosher supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes district of Paris. The shock inflicted on the general public in France was immense; the ramifications are unknown.
The two attacks together represented the worst terrorist atrocity in France for over 50 years. The previous worst incident was in June, 1961, when the OAS, representing a military clique that didn’t want to give Algeria independence, planted a bomb on the railway line between Strasbourg and Paris. When it went off, a high speed express running from Strasrourg to Paris was blown off the rails and 28 people were killed. Between then and now, many more very serious incidents have taken place, but nothing to match the sheer scale of horror of what has just happened in Paris.
There are many ironies in the situation. First of all, it was very ironic that Charlie Hebdo was on the point of going bankrupt. Its usual print run was 60,000, but often many copies were left unsold. The special issue this week has sold five million copies and will raise a vast amount of money for the families left bereft by the attacks. The other big surprise about the past week has been how Francois Hollande has become truly presidential. Often derided for being dithering and incompetent, as the events of the past week unfolded, he did everything needed exactly as it needed doing, beginning with his visit to the scene of the attack on Charlie Hebdo within an hour of it happening last Wednesday.
I’ve listened to some of his speeches since, and on every occasion, he has hit exactly the right dignified note. But in the longer term, the problems are only beginning. Part of the problem is that France has a huge Arab population; before long, people from that part of the world will represent 10 per cent of the French population. Some have settled in well and have integrated with society, but on the outskirts of Paris and many other French cities, vast areas are Arab populated and in many cases, the people living there can have few if any aspirations or hopes for a better life style. What has happened over the past week has been rocket fuel for the other side of the coin, the Front National. France itself as well as many other countries in western Europe, remain at risk and given the complexities and turbulence of the present day Middle East, this bodes badly for future stability outside that region.
The huge march on Paris last Sunday was impressive and between that and all the other marches in towns and cities up and down France some 3. 7 million people came out to voice their support for peace and democracy. Many have criticised the US President, Obama, for not making the effort to be in Paris last Sunday. What has happened in Paris over the past week will be compared by historians of the future to events like the Nazi takeover of Paris in 1940. Not even the most enlightened soothsayer can even try and work out what’s going to happen next. The French may be showing remarkable unity, as seen in the members of the national assembly singing the national anthem for the first time since 1918, but how useful all this is is going to be in the days and months ahead remains to be seen.
Some things struck me as very out of joint. The London Times last Saturday had massive coverage of what was happening in France, while in the middle of the same edition, they had lots of interesting ideas for holidays in France this summer. The disconnect between the two was so wide that I just couldn’t read through all the holiday copy- it just seemed so far removed from reality.
For a while now, many people in France have believed that 2015 is going to be a year of dramatic events, often tragic, that are going to help rewrite history and one cannot help but feel that this prophecy is going to be self- fulfilling. We won’t have long to wait until the next big European drama, the Greek national elections on January 27. It’ s quite likely that the extreme left wing party, Syriza, is going to form the next Greek government, and it remains to be seen what effect all this will have on the eurozone.
The news of the attacks in Paris have so dominated the French media that there seems little room for other news coverage. Life has to go on in France as everywhere else, but the din from last week’s attacks has been so deafening that at the moment, there’ s little room for what one might call ‘ normal’ news, like the odd earthquake down in Provence. Not that horrendous news has been confined to France. Last Thursday, a Chinese restaurant owner in Northern Ireland was driving home after closing up for the night. His car was stopped by a gang on a lonely country road and in front of his wife, the poor man’ s throat was slit, all for the sake of the night’ s takings. Northern Ireland has long had a bad reputation for violent sectarianism, but in recent years, in certain parts, racist attacks have become the new norm, all very unedifying.
Still there were other reports, elsewhere, that were profoundly interesting. I was very interested in the findings of a survey done by amateur botanists in Britain on New Year’s Day. They found nearly 400 species of flowers in bloom; only a few years ago, that figure would have been just 12. Something truly dramatic is happening with world weather but an awful lot of that change is going on under the radar.
Meanwhile, an event of incredible mind blowing boredom is well under way, the campaign for the next British general election. The promises and counter-promises so far have been utterly tedious and the way it’ s going, the electorate there will have succumbed to total and utter boredom long before the votes are cast. It’ s not much better with politicians here in Ireland, where homelessness is a vast and growing problem. One of the prime advocates of care for the homeless is Fr Peter McVerry, a Dublin priest, who has worked tirelessly on their behalf for years. He now says that he has given up trying to government departments or ministers interested in the plight of the homeless. He says that the only way to get action from ministers is to shame them into embarrassment. Doesn’t it sound just like politics everywhere!
At least, one of David Cameron’s cuties gave everyone some light relief this week. She was an unsuccessful Tory candidate in the 2010 general election and went on to become the chairman of the school governors of a technical school at Bournville in south Birmingham. The headmaster’s wife apparently caught the governor and the headmaster in a compromising position while the headmaster was supposed to have been at work. The headmaster apparently was just wearing his boxer shorts, while the governor wore nothing at all. She denies all this and says that they were merely discussing changes to the curriculum. Some curriculum by the sound of it!
Then came the revelations about all the gifts made by the public to members of the Royal Family in Britain over the past year. I laughed when I heard about two of the gifts given to Princess Anne; one was of after shave lotion, while the other was of 24 hour deodorant. I hope she has a sense of humour! And after the truly awful events of the past week, we need more utterly stupid stories like these, not fewer!