Thursday 14 July 2016

TERRORIST ATTACK IN NICE

“France cannot be destroyed. She is an old country who, despite her misfortunes, has, and always will have, thanks to her past, a tremendous prestige in the world, whatever the fate inflicted upon her.” - Pierre Laval

Yet another terrorist attack, yet more violence, yet more innocent people slaughtered. France is in mourning again and the whole world weeps with her. The violence of war is horrible enough, but violence against innocent people for whatever ideological or political reason is abhorrent and repugnant, a terrible affront to any civilised person’s humanity.


At least 84 people (including several children) are dead and 18 injured after a truck ploughed into a crowd of late-night revellers celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, in a terrorist attack described as the “worst catastrophe” in the French Riviera’s modern history. The driver of the truck involved was shot dead after ploughing into crowd in Nice. Along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront, hundreds of terrified people fled as the truck of death left behind it mangled, bloody bodies strewn in its wake. The driver had fired a pistol several times before being shot dead by police. Identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian citizen were reportedly found inside the 19-tonne truck.


French president François Hollande said France had been hit by a terrorist attack on its national day: “France was hit on the day of her national holiday, the 14th of July, symbol of liberty, because the rights of man are denied by fanatics and France is inevitably their target.” While a motive for the killing spree has as yet not been disclosed, officials are calling the incident a terrorist attack, the worst since a series of coordinated sieges across Paris killed 130 in November and likely the deadliest rampage ever by a lone attacker.


As Joachim du Bellay has said, “France is the mother of arts, of warfare, and of laws.” France will survive this attack and will join the rest of the civilised nations around the world to fight senseless violence that attacks the innocent. All of civilised humanity suffers with this latest bout of terrorism and is mourning in sympathy for the innocent lives lost.

3 comments:

  1. I am so sorry about the new, meaningless, evil attac.
    Vive La France!

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  2. The mass murderer in Nice is dead and won't feel the pain. But the widows, orphans and friends of the ordinary citizens who died ...have to live with the impact forever. So the real toll is not 84; it could be hundreds.

    In 2002 I was in Jerusalem when eleven school children were killed and 47 injured on their school bus in the morning rush hour. Hamas was proud of the massacre. But the parents who searched for their children's arms, legs and heads amongst the bomb blast stopped functioning on that day, even if they had other children to care for.

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