Gabriel Attal tried to adopt the serious and warlike accents of the head of state this Monday, March 11. Under the gray sky of Arras, from the parade skyscraper of the Vauban citadel, the Prime Minister pays tribute to the victims of the attacks. “France is on alert”, points out a few months before the Olympic Games. Then he promises to do everything for it “irreparable” is not happening. “Our vigilance is maximum, complete, absolute”he insists, recalling that 43 attacks have been thwarted since 2017. “Terrorists will never make us surrender”he again swears and assures the victims: “France will always be on your side. »
In front of him, protected from the torrential rain by a large transparent tent: the victims, their families, associations and a handful of local elected officials – former far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, Rassemblement MP from Pas-de-Calais and president (Les Républicains) of the Hauts-de -France Xavier Bertrand, who has already declared himself a candidate for 2027.
No head of state, past or present, was in the city devastated by the assassination of literature professor Dominique Bernard, which took place on October 13, 2023. The ceremony created in 2020, usually organized in Paris, the Elysée, was held for the first time outside the capital and without Emmanuel Macron.
The President of the Republic paid tribute to the victims of Hamas on February 7 and attended the funeral of Dominique Bernard, the Elysée emphasizes. But the president’s absence has taken on an indignation, almost a wound, for Arthur Dénouveaux, president of Life for Paris, an association of November 13 victims. “It shows that terrorism has become somewhat of a secondary issue for him”, he spoke to Franceinfo on Monday.
“Salute the memory of all the dead”
Gabriel Attal, “branded”according to his teams, remembering the attack on the Gambetta-Carnot high school when he was still at the Ministry of Education, he decided to hold the ceremony far from the capital, near the school for survivors in Arras. ” I remember », comes from the high school playground, shortly before heading to the citadel to posthumously decorate Dominique Bernard, who was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor like five other members of the school staff. All from “hero”, Gabriel Attal, among the teachers who are still shaken by the tragedy, made it possible to neutralize the bomber.
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