First published 15 November 2015
On 11 November I marched with fellow Pompier for Remembrance Day. The Pompier, the voluntary emergency team of our small village, led the parade to the cemetery. The names of soldiers who died in the world wars were read. We responded, 'Died for France.'
Despite the presence of dead soldiers' relatives within the crowd, war seemed long ago. School children sang the Marseillaise. Their peace-filled voices echoed like uninterrupted innocence. I wondered, 'How long will these villages keep these ceremonies? How long do they grieve? When will someone decide these wars are too long ago or too far away, as today war is fought on other people's soil?'
Two days later, after an evening at our local organic market, Paris was attacked. The news came like war does — sudden and violent, fracturing freedom with mass death. Then came declarations of a state of emergency and the closing of borders. That night my eldest daughter was over the border in Switzerland without a passport. War starts in increments — in the small ordinary worries of families.
More than any other western polity Europe knows war down to its bones. The memories of war on their soil brought a sobriety to the first days of this tragedy. French friends were not hysterical. They exhibited a quiet mourning and attempted to grapple with events.
French media didn't bombard with hyper-emotive images but relayed a connected respect for the dead and injured with reasoned analysis of government responses. State of emergency details were picked over to ascertain what they meant for freedom and whether they were necessary. Trauma experts explained how the neurology of trauma victims alters, making clear decision making impossible.
While the threshold of tolerance had been crossed, rather than screams, silence and quiet conversation pervaded, from the streets of Paris down to small villages. Candles spoke from household windows.
War rhetoric entered official statements quickly. Le Pen and Sarkozy dived deeper into declaring divisive politics alive. The nebulous war spoken about by politicians became inflated by imaginary nationalism rather than quiet resignation to state necessity.
'The problem', aptly summarised by Catherine Malabou, 'is how to fight democratically against non-democratic attacks and movements ... ISIS is trying to trap Western democracies into their own contradictions. Very clever and very dangerous.'
After eight years in France I join many in anger and desire that vital freedoms are protected from violence. However the necessity of military force to stop