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Em
França há medo. De tudo
França
destroçada com novo atentado - dois homens armados com facas
sequestraram cinco pessoas e mataram um padre. “Estamos em guerra”,
dizem políticos e cidadãos. Em França há medo. De tudo. Agora
também de represálias descontroladas contra os muçulmanos
Daniel Ribeiro,
correspondente em Paris
26.07.2016 às 14h58
É já uma rotina
aflitiva. Atentados sucessivos, angústia em crescendo, franceses
atordoados numa vertigem de lutos, de cólera e de incompreensão.
Mesmo as palavras sofridas de um presidente François Hollande,
visivelmente destroçado, ao fim desta manhã, no local do atentado
terrorista, numa igreja em Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, perto de Rouen,
na Alta Normandia, já fazem parte desta negra rotina francesa.
“É um ignóbil e
cobarde atentado terrorista, ligado ao Daesh, estamos mobilizados com
todas as forças para combater o terrorismo”, disse o chefe do
Estado. Hollande já repetiu as mesmas palavras vezes sem conta.
Desde há 18 meses que é assim, em França, que chora quase 250
mortos em atentados terroristas neste período. Dramas, promessas de
guerra ao terrorismo, em França e no estrangeiro.
“Estamos em
guerra”, dizem quase todos os franceses, incluindo o
primeiro-ministro, Manuel Valls. Um padre foi degolado, um dos reféns
ficou gravemente ferido, os dois sequestradores que durante esta
manhã tomaram de assalto uma igreja da pequena localidade normanda
foram abatidos pelas forças especiais da polícia.
A essa hora, a meio
da manhã, este repórter estava num táxi, em Paris. O motorista
ouvia “France Info”, uma rádio de informação permanente, era
judeu, estava furioso. “É preciso arrasar toda a zona controlada
pelo Daesh, com todas as nossas armas, incluindo nucleares, prender
estes muçulmanos todos dos subúrbios, matá-los se for preciso”,
exclamava, fora de si.
Quase todos os
franceses estão angustiados e, muito mais do que exasperados, estão
em cólera. O ex-presidente, Nicolas Sarkozy, aparentemente também.
Numa curta declaração, esta tarde, Sarkozy, que é candidato da
direita francesa às presidenciais, disse: “Estamos em guerra,
agora é eles ou nós, não podemos ficar por meias medidas”. A
direita francesa pede prisões em série, ou pelo menos “controlos
sistemáticos” de milhares de pessoas registadas de perto ou de
longe com o radicalismo religioso.
Nunca se viu uma
situação destas em França. Um francês de 70 anos, vizinho deste
correspondente, no bairro número 11 de Paris, o mais flagelado por
atentados, disse-me: “Receio que comecem a verificar-se
represálias, que muçulmanos comecem a ser atacados, acho que vai
acontecer, vai ser terrível”.
Pavorosa perspetiva.
Um dos sequestradores da igreja de Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray teria
estado preso até há pouco tempo, por ligações a movimentos
radicais islâmicos. Teria tentado ir combater para a Síria, estava
em liberdade condicionada, usava pulseira eletrónica e tinha
autorização para sair de casa entre as 8h30 e as 12h30. Saiu de
casa na manhã de hoje e terá sido ele que degolou o padre católico.
A França há medo.
De tudo. Georges Fenech, deputado de direita, presidente da comissão
de inquérito parlamentar sobre os terríveis atentados de 2015,
defende a criação de um “Guantanamo à francesa” para gerir a
situação. “Um Guantanamo à francesa será a solução mais
simples. Uma prisão destinada a indivíduos radicalizados”, disse
o parlamentar francês.
O novo ataque, na
Normandia, ocorreu quando estão em curso polémicas sobre as falhas
de segurança em Nice, durante o massacre da noite do dia 14 de julho
- 84 mortos e, 12 dias depois, dez feridos em perigo de vida.
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With
each attack, France nudges rightward on security
Spate
of terrorism brings ‘Israeli model’ into the French political
debate.
By
Pierre Briançon
7/26/16, 8:35 PM CET
PARIS — The French
once again spent the day watching their clench-jawed, sullen-looking
leaders call for national unity in the face of “the war” waged on
their country by ISIL. Once again an attack seemed to break another
taboo — this time the brutal killing of an elderly priest, in his
church in bucolic Normandy — signaling that even in the deepest
French provinces terror can strike anybody, anytime.
And once again,
French voters will likely turn on François Hollande, the president
who is in charge, hence responsible, when those attacks reoccur with
growing regularity and whose exit from the political stage has never
seemed so near.
What’s unclear
after Tuesday’s atrocity in Normandy is how far the current
government will go to push new measures to reassure the population,
as it did after the January and November attacks last year, and again
after Nice less than two weeks ago. Those boiled down to a state of
emergency that has already been extended three times, and the use of
military troops to help patrol streets or watch sensitive locations.
The government has gradually added to its already considerable
arsenal of legal clampdowns, for example by making provocation of or
apology for terrorist acts a criminal offense, and creating a new
category of “crimes of terrorist nature.”
Sarkozy called
for an end to “legalese nitpicking,” but that is precisely what
others describe as the rule of law.
As before, this
terror attack is reopening the debate over the appropriate balance
between civil liberties and security with calls to “do something”
and allow the police and the courts to impose more severe punishments
on the perpetrators or, more often (because the authors of terror
acts rarely survive them), the plotters who can be caught beforehand.
Sarkozy brings the
heat
Nicolas Sarkozy, the
former French president, was first out of the gate Tuesday with a
statement asking the government to “implement without delay the
measures [the conservative opposition] has been asking for months.”
The government, he said, should put an end to “legalese
nitpicking,” but that is precisely what others describe as the rule
of law.
In recent months and
even after Nice, the Socialist government had been at pains to insist
it would respect the constitutional order, not seeing in the current
“war” against ISIL (a word Hollande repeated Tuesday) a reason to
suspend civil liberties.
“We have to
move to a life where you can’t carry backpacks in public spaces,
where bags are seriously and systematically searched, and not by
tired employees who only take a quick look” — François Heisbourg
French Prime
Minister Manuel Valls was explicit just a week ago in his speech to
Parliament in asking for a renewal of the state of emergency. The
government, he said, would “turn down the temptation to propose
arbitrary measures or steps that would run counter to [France’s]
democratic and constitutional principles.”
It has, for example,
resisted the conservative Les Républicains party’s calls for
clamping down hard on people with “direct or indirect connections”
with a terrorist group, either by expelling foreigners, or interning
French citizens.
The problem, a
government adviser said, is that the line between what the French are
ready to accept in the name of security and what they would deem a
violation of their civil liberties is moved further back with each
new attack.
‘Israeli model’
The model most
talked-about in recent weeks in French political and security circles
has been that of Israel — based on a deep awareness of the terror
risk by the population, armed patrols in public transports,
systematic controls at entrance points of public spaces.
“It seems clear to
me the Israeli model is the direction we should be moving towards,”
said François Heisbourg, special adviser at France’s Strategic
Research Foundation, who has co-authored several government papers on
terrorism over the years. Heisbourg, a former adviser to Socialist
governments, has publicly called Hollande’s response to terror acts
“inefficient and laughable” — at least in terms of intelligence
and prevention.
“We have to move
to a life where you can’t carry backpacks in public spaces, where
bags are seriously and systematically searched, and not by tired
employees who only take a quick look,” he said.
In Nice, a
terrorist killed scores of children. On Tuesday, a priest had his
throat slashed in front of his flock.
The attack in
Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, however, underlines the challenge facing
the authorities.
“What’s next? Do
we now put two cops or two soldiers in every French church?” the
government adviser asked.
The head of a
private security firm, who didn’t want to be identified, raised
doubts about the Israeli model. “Do we want closed terrestrial
borders and to bring back the draft?” he asked.
Heisbourg said the
nature of the Normandy attack illustrates what he sees as ISIL’s
ultimate goal: triggering a civil war in France.
“They killed a
priest, in his church, in front of his flock,” and in another
precedent, he noted, “in a small French town.” The emotional
impact of the Nice Bastille Day truck rampage was magnified by the
fact that children were among the victims. This time, the cultural
and religious affront will have “a tremendous impact,” the
government adviser said.
Among those feeling
the most impact, politically, will of course be Hollande, the
president whose chances to win a second term next year — or even to
run again — are shrinking with every new attack.
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