Macron leads solemn Paris commemoration for October 7 dead

Held in probably the most spectacular of French monument complexes in Paris, Les Invalides, the ceremony to honor the 42 French binational residents killed within the Hamas invasion and bloodbath of October 7 lived as much as its grandiose environment.

Seated beneath massive tents to guard them from the rain have been greater than 1,000 company, together with some 100 members of the victims’ households flown in from Israel. They heard the French Military orchestra and choir, listened to a somber literary-poetic speech by President Emmanuel Macron, and noticed massive pictures of their family members carried by uniformed French Nationwide Guard by means of the large courtyard in a fancy that dates again to the seventeenth century, all documented by some 170 journalists, in line with the President’s workplace, the Elysée Palace.

Within the rain that finally stopped, tv, radio and press journalists had little entry to all these company, however luckily the French-Israelis got here to them. And the final opinion of the households was, “Bravo, la France.”

“We need to thank the French authorities for this ceremony, for placing names on the faces of the victims,” stated Kati Zohar, who misplaced her daughter, Bar, age 23, killed on the Nova pageant, as have been a very good variety of others. She famous that the Israeli authorities had carried out little to nothing for grieving households, saying, “no person from the federal government has come to see us.”

Not everybody agreed. Residents of Nahariya in northern Israel, Shahaf and Aviv Ben Simon misplaced their child sister Adar, age 20, a commander on the Zikim navy base close to Gaza. “Our authorities does assist us,” she stated. “It has acknowledged my sister as a courageous soldier. She and different troopers fought the Hamas terrorists once they arrived. They saved the lives of rookie troopers on the bottom. How do I really feel? I cry day-after-day. However I don’t need all these civilians to die in Gaza. This isn’t revenge by Israelis. They’re casualties in struggle. But when we cease the struggle now, my sister died for nothing. We would like peace and the tip of Hamas.”

A resident of kibbutz Nir Oz, Sabrina Belhassen Nimtzovitch, stated assembly with President Macron gave her hope to pursue her precedence of bringing house the hostages, three of whom are French binationals. “If establishing a truce will assist deliver them house, I’m for it,” she advised “Globes”. “And I feel Sinwar will hearken to officers from Qatar and Egypt greater than to politicians from western international locations, as a result of they’re Muslim Arabs like he’s,” she stated, referring to the Hamas chief within the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar.

On his cellphone, Doron Journo confirmed French journalists images of the burnt out ambulance wherein his daughter Karin was killed on the Nova pageant. Hamas terrorists fired an RPG rocket into the ambulance, killing all 14 younger folks inside, in line with Journo. Requested in regards to the Israeli authorities, he responded, “Now just isn’t the time and place to speak about political intrigues. However I thank the French for holding this ceremony.”

Not one of the French-Israelis commented on the native political controversy, the presence of the leftist France Unbowed celebration, La France Insoumise (LFI), which has not acknowledged Hamas as a terrorist group. Some members of the family and French Jewish group officers had known as on the Elysée to not invite LFI deputies to the ceremony. Nonetheless, doing so would have been a critical breach of parliamentary protocol.

After which French President Emmanuel Macron addressed company. Projected on big screens inside and outdoors the Invalides advanced, and likewise at Kikar Hatufim, Hostage Sq., in Tel Aviv, he stated the October 7 assault by Hamas was “the largest antisemitic bloodbath within the twenty first century.”

Virtually each information program right here led with that declaration by the French president. However frankly it does increase the query, what in regards to the Israeli Bedouin Arabs and the Thai and Philippino employees who have been killed or taken hostage by Hamas on October 7?

The difficulty was raised by former French prime minister Manuel Valls, a visitor on a chat present within the Paris bureau of i24 Information, which broadcasts out of Jaffa in French, English and Arabic. “I favor to say a hatred of Jews, sure, but in addition a hatred of Israel and of western democracies,” he commented. On the ceremony, he advised journalists, “we should combat in opposition to the specter of radical Islamic terrorism.”

Again to French President Macron. “68 million French individuals are in mourning,” he advised company on the ceremony. “The faces of every of the victims are right here, and so they mirror part of ourselves, mirror pictures of who we have been, who we will likely be at their age, and who they are going to by no means be…at 6am on October 7, the younger folks dancing on the Nova pageant didn’t know they have been already caught within the jaws of dying…the sounds of a music pageant have been shattered by the drumbeats of hell….and with its barbarism, Hamas has shaken and crushed the Palestinians of Gaza, and never defended them as it’s claiming.”

The French president appeared solemnly shaken by his personal speech, its literary type nearly not possible to translate into English.

But, in line with dozens of feedback posted on the France Télévisions web site, not everybody agrees. A number of posts learn: “68 million minus one”, or “what about Palestinian civilian victims of Israeli bombardments?”

And maybe not accidentally, there may be discuss right here of the Elysée Palace holding one more ceremony, for French residents killed in Gaza. An Elysée Palace spokesperson advised Agence France Presse (AFP) in a dispatch dated February 6, “We owe the identical emotion and dignity to French victims of bombardments in Gaza.” No particulars on a date or sort of ceremony have been talked about.

Unsurprisingly, the thought has drawn reward from the La France Insoumise celebration, which said, “We assist honoring Franco-Israeli victims and Franco-Palestinian victims, as a result of each life counts.”

The President of the “7 October 2023 – Damaged Lives” affiliation , Ange Kalderon, commented, “It will be shameful for France, like conceding to the rule of Hamas.”

Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on February 8, 2024.

© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.