I wanted to draw you attention to this editorial from Le Monde, hepfully translated by World Crunch. The original editorial is here and I found the translation pretty fair. I’d’ve translated a few words differently but it’s reasonably faithful.
I think the editorial hits the right notes. It minces no words:
France is at war. At war against a terrorism that is totalitarian, blind and horribly murderous. We’ve known it since the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris in January.
And yet, despite the French population’s exceptional show of unity four days after those attacks, despite the shows of solidarity from the leaders of all the world’s democracies, President François Hollande, Prime Minister Manuel Valls and France’s top security officials had warned repeatedly: the threat still exists. It wasn’t a matter of whether there’d be more attacks in France, but when.
So it happened this Friday, November 13. More bloodshed in and around Paris. And this tragedy demonstrates that these terrorists who have decided to target France have set no limits to their deadly endeavour.
which is better than our leaders and most of our media. The terrorist attack didn’t exactly come as a surprise:
President François Hollande, Prime Minister Manuel Valls and France’s top security officials had warned repeatedly: the threat still exists. It wasn’t a matter of whether there’d be more attacks in France, but when.
Echoing Hollande, it calls for sang-froid, i.e. composure, is dealing with the threat:
This folly calls for only one response. To show dignity in the face of panic. To show resolution against the sowers of death. To show lucidity in the face of chaos. And as the President of the Republic rightly said during the night, to show sang-froid the “cold blood†of steely calm and determination in the face of terror. And above all, to again show the nation’s unity in the face of our ordeal.
In the wake of these attacks, Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Front party could see their popularity rise. Le Pen kept a low profile after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January and still saw an increase in her party’s popularity because of its longstanding anti-immigration message. Hollande also saw a brief uptick in popularity after the Charlie Hebdo attack because of his reaction to the events, but a repeat of this trend is not expected because people will now question whether the anti-terrorism measures that were approved this year actually worked. The leader of the center-right Republicans Party, Nicolas Sarkozy, also has a history of taking a strong stance on security issues; he was campaigning on the subject only last week. He is expected to battle the milder Alain Juppe for his party’s nomination in the 2017 elections, and voters may swing to his side in the wake of the attacks.
The ball is clearly in M. Hollande’s court and his next steps are crucial. Will he invoke Article 5 of the NATO agreement? If so, we will either go to war or NATO is finished.
The calls for unity are essential. France is believed to have about three times as many Muslims per capita as the United States, most French citizens. No one really knows because keeping records on religion or ethnicity is illegal.
Face them with sang-froid and an aerial bombardment campaign.