A friend from Paris had this to say a about this evening’s attacks:
This may well be France’s version of 9-11. I’m listening to French commentators on TV, and they sound like ours did when the towers came down. Shock, horror, and righteous anger.
President Holland gave a short speech earlier tonight (very bad speech, actually – Obama’s was much better). He announced a state of emergency (the first time since 1955, during the Algerian war) and closed the borders. Paris is now in a state of ‘voluntary’ curfew (voluntary in the sense that they won’t shoot on sight, but you should probably move slowly).
On the other hand…
No one – and I mean not one person on TV or in the print media – has mentioned the fact that the terrorists are of Arab origin [and] are Muslim. . . .One of the guys who shot up the theater (more than a hundred dead) was shouting ‘Allahu Akhbar’, according to survivors. We’ve had thousands of ‘refugees’ from Syria arriving for weeks. What more do we need in order to be able to speculate on their motivations?
So it’s possible that France won’t wake up. I’m hopeful, but only moderately. . . .
A very sad night. You remember how the US felt on September 11th. The feeling here is exactly, precisely the same.
Personally, I’m f***ing pissed. These barbarians shot up places I know. [My fiance] had a friend who was in the bar next door to the one that got devastated when the shooting started. This is, in fact, a war, and we should be fighting it. . . .
The theater where the terrorist took and killed the hostages was hosting an American hard rock band, and it’s a very young, partier-type of neighborhood (Les Halles, République and Bastille, on a Friday night…). I think they’ll be a number of U.S. students in the dead. . . .
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