Terror and blood in France. On January 7, 2015, two terrorists, “in the name of Allah”, opened fire and killed twelve people by raiding the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a few hundred meters from the Bastille. The killers Said and Cherif, two Franco-Algerian jihadist brothers aged 32 and 34, had returned to France from Syria. With them an accomplice, Amid, just 18 years old.
President Hollande on the first anniversary of the massacre said that ‘France is under a frightening threat’ “On the external front – said Hollande addressing the police in the historic headquarters of the prefecture of Paris, we respond with our armed forces fighting alongside our allies against the barbarism of Isis “.” On the internal front – he continued – we respond by tracking down terrorists, dismantling their networks, draining their sources of funding “. But also” by blocking their radicalization propaganda “.
France is shocked, President Francois Hollande – who rushed to the scene – appeared in shock. He defined the victims as “our heroes”, who fell for the idea they had of France, “freedom”. They fell under the blows of the terrorist commando Charb, the director, and the hugely popular satirical artists Wolinski, Cabu and Tignous. They looked for them, one by one, in particular Charb, author of a last tragically prophetic cartoon, in which he joked about possible imminent terrorist attacks in France. Witnesses, on the other hand, speak of a period of strangely loosened defenses to the newspaper, for years in the crosshairs of fanaticism for its provocations against religious extremisms of all kinds. “Allah Akbar”, the terrorists shouted as they came out, filmed by the
“We avenged the prophet”, “we killed Charlie Hebdo, we belong to Al Qaeda”: these are the other delirious screams of the terrorists, who during some interminable minutes carried out a scientific slaughter, asking journalists their name before executing them. The economist Bernard Maris, who had a column on Charlie Hebdo, under the pseudonym of Oncle Bernard, a porter, a policeman who ran by bicycle from the nearby police station and another who was on guard at the inside the editorial staff. The killers fled in a car, then had to abandon it after a collision with a vehicle driven by a woman, threatened another driver and drove off in his car. And right in the auto agents found their ID cards. An unprecedented manhunt was immediately unleashed in the northern suburbs of Paris.
The hashtag #Jesuischarlie that has invaded the net seems to be printed on the faces of the French, bewildered and frightened. For terrorism expert Antoine Basbous, it could be the beginning of a new wave of terrorist attacks “like in 1995”, with the difference that back then they were spontaneous groups and improvised devices, while today the commandos in action seem very well trained and show “exceptional calm”. “We must say enough to hypocrisy and call things by their name: it is a massacre perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalism”, thundered the leader of the Front National Marine Le Pen. January 9 – A double blitz puts an end to the nightmare, terrorists killed
4 hostages dead. France in shock from coordinated attacksThe three longest days for France end with more blood, which began with the massacre in the editorial office in Charlie Hebdo and ended with a double, simultaneous assault by French special forces. The three terrorists, who praised al Qaeda and Isis, died, one of their probable supporters died. Four people also died, hostage in a supermarket of kosher products. “We will come out of this test even stronger”, President Francois Hollande said on TV, trying to relieve the French frightened by an interminable nightmare. But then he immediately added that “for France the threats are not over”.
The terrible attack on the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, then the cruel murder of a young policewoman, finally the escape of the three terrorists hunted like animals, the two fundamentalist brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and the ultra Islamic of Malian origin Amedy Coulibaly. In the escape, the two Kouachi had tried to steal a car, clashed with the police and, finally, barricaded themselves in a printing shop in the industrial area of ​​Seine-et-Marne, east of Paris, close to Charles airport. de Gaulle of Roissy. At the same time, the circle tightened around Coulibaly, of whom nothing more was known after the murder of the young agent: once the parents were stopped, a warrant was issued against him and his partner, Hayat Boumeddiene.
The Kouachi brothers didn’t realize they had a hostage with them. After hours, feeling lost and without power to exchange with the police who were besieging them, they left the plant shooting at the police at 4.57pm. Following the orders given directly by President Hollande, the special forces returned fire and “neutralized” the threat. The two brothers, who had made it known that they wanted to die “as martyrs”, were killed in the fire fight. In the early afternoon, meanwhile, Coulibaly had re-emerged, of whom there had been no news for hours. He was hunted down, he learned of his parents stopped, he felt that he had reached the end and moved on to the extreme gesture: Kalashnikov in hand, and entered a kosher supermarket in Vincennes, a residential suburb of Paris,
The reconstructions say he immediately killed four of the hostages, then threatened a massacre if the Kouachi brothers were touched. He had the calm and concentration to call the BFMTV editorial staff to make it clear that his action was coordinated with the terrorist brothers, who were supposed to take care of “them Charlie Hebdo, me the policemen”. After saying he belongs to the Islamic State, he prepared for the end by starting to pray (the editors of BFMTV listened to his prayers from the cell phone that was disconnected). Also in Vincennes, by order of Hollande, the leatherheads took action, exactly three minutes after Dammartin-en-Goele: fire and tear gas grenades on the supermarket, raids and explosions, then silence. Slowly the survivors came out, while the rescuers dedicated themselves to the wounded. Five confirmed dead: Coulibaly and four hostages. However, some report that among the four victims there could be a possible accomplice of the killer.
Put in check by three people despite having deployed almost 100 thousand men on the ground, France tries to heal its wounds and ask itself about the future. Prime Minister Manuel Valls has hinted that something needs to be changed in the French legislative arsenal, some circumstances that emerge from hour to hour confirm it: Coulibaly on the loose despite being sentenced to 5 years in 2013 for trying to to escape Belkacem, an Algerian terrorist infamous for the 1995 attacks; Cherif Kouachi, already reported as a dangerous fundamentalist, has just returned from a stay in Yemen in 2011 that he himself described as “financed by Imam Anwar al-Awlaki”, yet free to act and organize as he pleases.
