France: Macron Gets His Own History Wrong

As we reported yesterday, in the wake of last Saturday’s riots which broke out in large French cities all over France, a Frenchman identified only as Kevin, went on a shooting spree yesterday on the outskirts of Paris, killing one person and wounding 5, including a 12-year-old girl. The victims are all described as North or sub-Saharan Africans and were allegedly targeted as such. This is to be condemned by all decent people.

French President Emmanuel Macron has made a controversial statement in response to the shooting to the effect that this incident is the first terrorist attack in France based on skin color or religion. This has led to an outcry from people on both sides of the political spectrum, who point out the number of Jews, Catholics, and whites murdered in France in the past due to their ethnicity/religion.

The article below from Le Monde lists several incidents that Macron failed to mention. For the benefit of the reader, I am adding additional details to each of the attacks mentioned with the exception of the incident described only as “Thomas”, which has insufficient information.  

First, there is the 2012 attack by Mohamed Merah on a Jewish school in Toulouse in which 7 people were killed, including 3 students, 2 of whom were brothers, the terrorist attack on the Hyper Casher Jewish supermarket in 2015 in a Paris suburb in which 4 Jewish hostages were murdered, the assassination of Father Jacques Hamel by two Islamic terrorists while conducting Mass in his church in 2016 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. (His throat was slashed.) In the 2020 attack on the Notre Dame Basilica in Nice, a Tunisian man stabbed 3 people to death. In the 1982 Rue de Rosier attack on a Jewish restaurant in a Paris neighborhood, 6 people were murdered. Samuel Paty was a teacher who showed his students images of the Prophet Mohammed in his class 2020 in Éragny, Val-d’Oise, Île-de-France. For that, he was attacked and beheaded outside his school by a Muslim man.  In the Charlie Hebdo murders, 12 people were murdered in 2015 in Paris by two Algerian brothers in retaliation for satirical cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad by the Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper. One of the dead was a French police officer.

To those, I would add the 2006 kidnap, torture, and murder of 23-year-old Ilan Halimi, a Jewish man in Paris at the hands of a group of young people of various nationalities who called themselves the “Gang of Barbarians”, as well as the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi (no relation) a 65-year-old Jewish woman in Paris who was attacked in her apartment, murdered and thrown from her balcony by Kobili Traore, a 30-year-old man, who reportedly screamed, “Allahu akhbar” while committing his crime, but who was acquitted on the grounds that he was high on cannabis at the time of his crime.

 Dare I not mention the November 2015 Paris attacks by Islamic terrorists, which killed 130 people, or the truck attack in Nice in 2016 by a Tunisian that killed 86 people?

Dare I not mention the Holocaust in France during World War 2?

The article below from Le Monde is translated by Fousesquawk. 

 Murderous attack in Trappes: Emmanuel Macron causes controversy by evoking a “first terrorist act” for reason of “the color of skin or religion,” despite previous incidents. The Elysee (Palace) responds by explaining that “the chief of state was, of course, speaking about the first racist attack based on the color of skin committed in the country, as he made clear at the beginning of his statement”. 

-Le Monde with Agence France-Presse

Posted today at 08:23, updated at 08:34

Several personalities expressed their disapproval on Friday, October 23, after the remarks from Emmanuel Macron about the attack in Trappes, which the president described as, “the first terrorist act due to ‘skin color or religion,” despite previous incidents.

From both sides of the political spectrum, and various associations, the president of the Republic is accused of “forgetting”, of “denying reality”, in particular, the attack committed in 2012 by Mohamed Merah, which cost the lives of 7 persons, including 3 students of a Jewish school, that of the Hyper Casher (Jewish supermarket) in 2015, the assassination of Father Hamel in 2016, or the attack on the Notre Dame Basilica of Nice in 2020.

On Friday, a man suspected of targeting people with an immigration background killed one person and wounded 5 others during an attack between Trappes and La Verriere (Yvelines). He was arrested and placed in custody.

“This is a turning point because it is the first time that there is a terrorist act planned to kill our compatriots, our children by reason of their skin color or the religion they were raised in,” affirmed Emmanuel Macron, who went to the scene in the evening. “What happened today is a racist terrorist attack,” he asserted. “We will not give in to ideas that are taking root in the Republic that could justify this kind of behavior or could create an atmosphere that could justify them”.

A statement “politically problematic”

“Contrary to what you declare, it is not the ‘first time’ that French people are targeted and killed in the context of a planned terrorist operation ‘by reason of their skin color or their religion”‘, Jordan Bardella, President of Rassemblement National, stated on the X platform, citing previous incidents from the last 15 years. 

“This statement by the President of the Republic is factually false, thus politically problematic,” added Essonne deputy Jerome Guedi (Socialist Party), stressing that “identity categorization” had already “been utilized as leverage for terrorism“.

Turning back to the Rue des Rosiers in 1982, the Member of the European Parliament, Xavier Bellamy (The Republicans), called on Emmanuel Macron not to “make people believe this is a turning point, to suddenly deny the reality of the tears shed by France for far too long,” also mentioning the attack against Charlie Hebdo and the murder of Samuel Paty, “killed for what they did not believe in.”

“A tragic evening where the president chose his deaths. He forgets the Catholics, like Father Hamel, (who) died because he was Catholic. He forgets the Jews, like the Sandler children, (who) died because they were Jews. He forgets the whites, like Thomas, (who) died because he was white,” the extreme right member of the European Parliament deputy Sarah Knafo (Reconquete party), also rebuked. 

“No pain is above another”

The president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Yonathan Arfi, also reacted. “To kill a French person for the color of their skin or supposed religion is to attack the entire Republic. We are all on the side of the victims without reservation,” he wrote on X. “Because this unity is sacred is precisely why a statement of the president of the Republic requires a clarification,” noting that, “it is unfortunately not the first ‘first time’ that such an attack has occurred in France”.

During the evening, the Elysee (Palace) responded to the controversy, explaining that, “the head of State was, of course, speaking of the first racist attack based on the color of skin committed in the country, as he made clear at the beginning of his statement”.

The president himself stated on X he wanted, “to recall an essential truth and avoid all controversy: The country has known in past years the attacks that have struck Christians because they were Christians and the Jews because they were Jews. None of these victims should be forgotten. No pain should be above another. And (he) did not want anything this evening to add to the pain of the families, to the sadness of the country and the reflection of the nation.”

Source: http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2026/10/france-macron-really-steps-in-it-again.html