When I awoke yesterday morning, I almost enjoyed the terrifying silence on Boulevard Montparnasse in Paris — no attacks were perpetrated on the Left Bank of the Seine, where I live. I had wondered whether the streets would be deserted, — they were — or whether there would be this defiant “normality,” as followed the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. Perhaps that would come later.
Friday was weird in all regards. Just hours before the carnage, a variegated crowd of Parisian academics, artists and former political leaders, including former Frech president Nicolas Sarkozy, had communed — despite their differences of opinion over Voltaire, 16th-century philosopher Etienne de la Boetie and humanist optimism — at the funeral of the French philosopher Andre Glucksmann, held at Pere Lachaise cemetery. Words of peace infused the ceremony, along with dreams for a better future in nations ravaged by war and tears of empathy for refugees, as well as for boat people from Vietnam in earlier decades, whom Glucksman famously defended.
Before nightfall, war was far from home, though always a cause in which most of the new French philosophers involved themselves, but by dinner time, there were bodies lying in pools of blood in the streets of Paris. People were crawling under tables or hiding behind metal shutters hastily pulled down in restaurants. Blood and tears. Fear and silence. A grave silence, broken only by sirens or the sound of helicopter blades... War had come home.
A “Charlie 2” or Charlie-bis as French people would rather say. The assessment was immediate, unanimous and, at first, without doubt. Friday’s attacks were simultaneous, better coordinated and six in total, but several of them were carried out in the very vicinity of the Charlie Hedbo offices where 11 people were killed and 11 injured on Jan. 7.
Many of those fleeing the attack sites and following the events on TV rushed to their Facebook accounts to post images of the gathering on the fateful night in January in Place de la Republique, where thousands of people assembled spontaneously and held illuminated placards reading: “Not Afraid.”
However, on Friday night, the square was empty, crossed only by ambulances and special police vehicles driving at full speed to the neighboring streets where three of the six attacks took place.
Many believe there was a rational explanation behind the Charlie Hebdo attack in January — the caricatures of Mohammed — as well as behind the kosher supermarket attack two days later. The victims at Charlie Hebdo and the shop were intentionally targeted as members of specific groups, because of their opinions or religion. This time, it is blind violence against random targets. Paris has discovered something it did not taste 10 months earlier, a feeling that belongs to war zones: that violent death could come to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Since Friday night, Parisians have been afraid, really afraid. Even before the authorities ordered people to stay where they were, most of the crowds in the area of the attacks had rushed into surrounding buildings, asking for refuge in an any occupied apartment.
In Montmartre, which is some distance from the carnage, most restaurant-goers preferred to stay put and sleep on a floor rather than try to take one of the few taxis that were still working in the early hours. Those who did decide to head home were often not charged by their drivers, who were careful to avoid red traffic lights for fear of becoming an easy target if they stopped their vehicles. Panic had almost paralyzed Paris and emptied its streets — but solidarity had risen proportionally.
“Tyrants appear great only because we are on our knees,” wrote De la Boetie.
In the still astonishing and grave silence of Saturday morning, this phrase resonated as a terrible and pressing challenge to the people of France. Terrorism is evil, but it has become part of our reality. Its aim is to subject us to a constant feeling of terror, of fear, so that it can rule our lives and divide us. Our only response as citizens is to continue our lives as if it does not exist.
It is likely to take time, even after the lifting of the state of emergency, for Parisians and all French to overcome the trauma and resist.
Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande has promised to fight the terrorists with resolve, but no pity, fulfilling the expectations of a majority of French.
However, opposing terrorism by responding with arbitrary terror can never make people safer.
Florence Hartmann, a former senior correspondent for Le Monde, is a documentary filmmaker and author.
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