Emmanuel Macron is going to Toulouse on Sunday, March 20, for the ceremonies to commemorate the attacks perpetrated ten years ago by Mohammed Merah which left seven dead, in the presence of the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, as well as François Hollande and Nicholas Sarkozy.
Nearly two thousand people are invited for these ceremonies organized by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif). Mr. Macron had accepted the invitation during the Crif dinner at the end of February, in Paris; he then called for a “general mobilization of the whole society” to combat anti-Semitism and promised to ” continue the fight (…) tirelessly “.
“The joint presence [de MM. Macron et Herzog] intends to mark the friendship that binds France and Israel, as well as the will of the two Heads of State to continue their common fight against terrorism and anti-Semitism., explains the Elysée. Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Senate President Gérard Larcher, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo are also expected.
The French head of state and his Israeli counterpart must lay a wreath in the courtyard of the Ohr-Torah school (formerly Ozar-Hatorah school), at the foot of the “tree of life”, a monument in tribute to the victims . MM. Macron and Herzog will then go to a concert hall in downtown Toulouse, the Halle aux grains, where a tribute ceremony will take place for the victims of the March 2012 killings.
Several texts will be read by the friends of the victims and members of their families, then MM. Macron and Herzog will deliver speeches.
Several other highlights are planned during the day, without the presence of the Heads of State, in particular a gathering of former students of the school, a round table on the theme of radicalization and the fractures of French society as well as a play performed on Sunday evening. The French and Israeli presidents, each accompanied by his wife, must then have dinner together on Sunday evening at the Elysée Palace.
Eight victims in eight days
Ten years ago, the series of attacks by Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old delinquent, caused fear: on March 11, in Toulouse, a soldier from the 1is paratrooper train regiment, Imad Ziaten, 30, was shot in the head.
On March 15, three soldiers were targeted as they withdrew money in front of the barracks at 17e parachute engineer regiment in Montauban: Mohamed Legouad, 24, and Abel Chennouf, 26, are killed; Loïc Liber, a 28-year-old Guadeloupean, will remain quadriplegic.
On March 19, around 8 a.m., the case took another turn: two children, Myriam Monsonego, 8, and Gabriel Sandler, 3, were shot at close range in the playground of the Ozar-Hatorah school in Toulouse. A few seconds earlier, Arié Sandler, 6, and his father, Jonathan Sandler, succumbed to bullets from the helmeted killer.
Several hundred investigators are mobilized to identify the author who swung into fundamentalism during periods of detention, but passed under the radar of anti-terrorism. On the night of March 20 to 21, the police launched an operation to arrest him, but the elite RAID unit encountered unexpected resistance from the suspect who opened fire through the door of his apartment. Police negotiators are trying to talk to Mr. Merah, who claims responsibility for the three attacks on behalf of Al-Qaeda. The siege will last thirty hours, until the assault during which it is shot down.
The attacks in Toulouse and Montauban, which occurred a few days before the presidential election – during which Nicolas Sarkozy, then incumbent president, clashed with the socialist leader François Hollande – marked the beginning of a series of terrorist attacks in France.
“I immediately understood that Islamist barbarism has no limits, that it killed to kill”said Mr. Holland during an interview on Radio J broadcast on Sunday.