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BEAUTIFULWhen a suspected Tunisian Islamist killed three people this week at a church in the city of Nice on the French Riviera, it brought back painful memories for many residents.
Four years ago, another suspected Islamist from Tunisia drove a 19-ton truck into a crowd not far from the church, killing more than 80 people.
The attack on the church, which was added to the assault on the truck, left many people in Nice yesterday feeling that they were angry and wanting to fight against the people they believe are to blame.
“We’ve had enough,” Nice resident Francois Bonson, 38, said at the scene of the church attack yesterday. He said his mother-in-law visited the church frequently, and at first he feared that she was among the victims.
“We are forced to live with these foreigners who spit on us, who spit on France,” Bonson said.
The truck attack occurred on July 14, 2016 when people in Nice were watching a fireworks display to mark Bastille Day, France’s national holiday.
Tunisian immigrant Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove the Renault truck into the crowd that packed the Promenade des Anglais. The police shot him. The Islamic State group said it was responsible for the attack.
The personable mayor Christian Estrosi, who was also in office at the time of the truck attack, alluded to it when he rushed to the site of the church attack on Thursday.
“Nice, like France and perhaps more than other places in France, is paying too high a price, once again becoming a victim of Islamofascism,” he said.
Local newspaper Nice Matin wrote in an editorial in its Friday edition: “Forever traumatized by the night of July 14, 2016, which they would like to put out of their minds, the people of Nice are once again faced with barbarism.” .
Muslims under scrutiny
Nice’s story with such violence helped explain why, on Monday, some people were in a bitter and combative mood.
Boubekeur Bekri, regional vice president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, said he feared the sentiment could evolve into a rejection of the Muslim community.
There are about 1 million Muslims living in the Provence Alpes Cote D’Azur region that includes Nice, Bekri said.
He recalled that in Nice after the 2016 attack, a veiled Muslim woman was verbally assaulted in the street.
After the attack on the church on Thursday, he said, he noticed that people were giving him suspicious looks because they recognized by his appearance that he was Muslim. “I’m used to it enough to let it go,” he said. “But it’s annoying, you see.”
He said the sentiment had not spilled over into overt actions or violence directed at the Muslim community. He said communities must come together to tackle terrorism.
But for the moment, he said, “people will not be able to join. Instead of convergence, we may be heading for some trouble. “
Jean-Francois Gourdon, parish treasurer of the Notre Dame church where the attack occurred, said yesterday that he tried to follow a path of compassion, but could no longer do so.
“Now I feel angry,” he said.
One of the victims of the attack, the church’s sacristan, Vincent Loques, was a friend of Gourdon. She burst into tears when she recalled comforting Loques’s wife after she heard that her husband had died.
“We have been welcoming, but we are not going to be more welcoming,” he said. “We don’t want to become Lebanon or a country like that.”
“It is not anti-Muslim. I just want people to respect other people. To each his place. When you are in Rome, do what the Romans do. “- Reuters
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