Charlie Hebdo: ten years later, the octopus still threatens… the “Unfiltered” column by Mémona Hintermann

Let us say straight away that the terrorists of the Islamic State – Daesh in Arabic – have not won, ten years after the massacres of the tragic year 2015 in France. However, the friends of Kouachi and other Abdeslams have not renounced their barbaric ideology.

Between this Tuesday, January 7 and November 13 – dates of the bloodbaths at Charlie’s, at the Vincennes kosher supermarket and at the Bataclan – the ceremonies will impose a lucid look at what terrorism has changed in our lives. The scandal caused by the assassination, in the name of Islam, of two professors, Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, brought the ignominy to a climax. The attack on our values ​​– yes this word matters – is anchored in the social fabric. The lack of confidence that undermines us has widened dramatically, the decline in the promise of fraternity, the rise of racial hatred and anti-Semitism are weakening us. It is now difficult to live as before, if only because of the obligations of the more or less red Vigipirate – last March the deadly attack near Moscow took it up a notch.

As soon as a party attracts the public, even in small towns, it is necessary to provide concrete blocks and anti-car ramming devices – not great for the atmosphere – going through security steps in an airport becomes downright painful. Yet how can we lower our guard? While plans for mass attacks were foiled during the Olympics and Paralympics, that does not mean the threat is diminishing. The cases of arrests and indictments attest to this: worrying profiles of young people, and even very young people, involved in the preparation of acts targeted by the national anti-terrorist prosecution. From March 24 to April 11, 6 defendants will be before the special assize court for minors: one of the defendants was a minor at the time their deadly organization was detected. They belonged to a conspiracy cell that had been monitored for years. Specificity: these Islamists – including two converts – operated within a halal butcher’s shop in Brest. That a local business serves as a nest for potential assassins is quite new and does not help the “living together” proclaimed by Manuels Valls, then Prime Minister in January 2015, in the middle of the National Assembly. An idea in tatters today.

Among the ideas discussed by these terrorists: surprise the inhabitants of a Breton village in their sleep, assassinate them all. Like in Algeria during the civil war of the 90s, like in Syria recently. Syria which remains a threat to our security. In the country of the former El-Assad clan, the international coalition – of which France is a part – has been bombing Islamic State terrorist hideouts for ten years.

Last Tuesday Rafale planes dropped bombs on two targets. The Americans have also intensified their bombings since the regime change. The anti-terrorist services fear a comeback of the Islamists and the reactivation of their dangerousness in our streets. No country escapes the voracity of the octopus, the attack in New Orleans proved it. Ditto in Germany, struck in Solingen last summer, in Magdeburg before Christmas.

Ten years later, not sure that Cabu, Charb and their friends would really want to laugh. Certainly not with just anyone.