Islamist bomb psychosis has set in again in France after the killing of a teacher on Friday and fears that the Gaza conflict will serve as a trigger for entrenched radical Islamism in the country
In addition to raising the official level of alert, President Macron decided yesterday to increase the deployment of the army in the streets, up to 7,000 soldiers, as a deterrent. The trigger was the murder of a teacher in a high school in Arràs, in the north of the country, at the hands of a young man of Caucasian origin who was under police surveillance for his radicalism.
A few hours after the reinforcement of the military device was announced, the Louvre Museum proceeded to evacuate visitors and staff due to a bomb threat. In the afternoon it was the turn of Versailles. The palace and its gardens were evacuated after a warning. Lyon station in Paris was also evacuated because a suspicious package was detected. The sequence could reveal a deliberate plan of intimidation.
In the case of the Louvre, it was the museum itself, on social networks, that informed the public of the closure throughout the day. "Dear visitors, for security reasons the Louvre Museum will be closed today, Saturday 14 October. People who have booked a viewing will be refunded. We appreciate your understanding", read the account of X, the former Twitter.
A spokesman for the museum indicated that a written message had been received. Following protocol, it was decided to evacuate people and inspect the rooms. It was decided to close for the rest of the day as a precautionary measure. The prefecture of Paris put the total number of evacuees at 15,000.
The feeling of vulnerability is great in France due to various circumstances. The country is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe - more than 400,000 people - and French and Muslim immigrants number in the millions. All this makes French territory an easy target for the explosive climate in the Middle East.
"His hatred, our blindness", headlines the editorial on the front page of the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, echoing the political debate that has been exacerbated on how to address the problem of Islamic extremism and immigration without reducing guarantees of the rule of law. It has caused perplexity - and indignation - to learn that the killer from Arràs was being watched by the police, because he was registered as a radical, and that the day before the attack he was subjected to a check.
The extension of Operation Sentinel, the military device launched in 2015 after the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo weekly, aims to show the determination of the State and reassure the public.
More than five hundred schools opened their doors yesterday "for a moment of union and recollection", as reported by the Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal. On Monday, classes will begin at ten in the morning and there will be a minute of silence at two in the afternoon.
Despite the reinforced security device, there is serious concern about what could happen if the war in Gaza continues and images of Palestinian civilians victimized by the actions of the Israeli army continue to arrive.
The president of the Center for Reflection on Internal Security (CRSI), the lawyer Thibault de Montbrial, warned in an interview with the LCI chain that, according to his sources, there has been infiltration in Europe, during the last months, of terrorist cells from Afghanistan whose aim could be to carry out attacks during the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024. Montbrial expressed his concern about the suburbs of large French cities, which suffer from periodic eruptions of violence According to the president of the CRSI, riots like the one in July, after a young man was shot dead by the police during a traffic control, end after a few days because the drug traffickers want preserve order to continue its business. But Montbrial fears that the events in Gaza will trigger a larger and unstoppable identity revolt, and that some extremists will gain access to the firearms of criminals and traffickers in the suburbs, which has not yet happened.
