Opinion Paris concord

Not since the liberation of 1944 has Paris seen so many people together. About 1.2 to 1.6 million marched in Sunday’s unity rally, along with more than 40 world leaders. Not since World War II has the Synagogue de la Victoire been closed either, as it was on Saturday. The biggest gathering in French history — the crowds swelled to 3.7 million across France — also witnessed the very Parisian anomaly of cheers greeting police vans. If anything could elevate a symbolic response to last week’s three-day-long terror above mere mutual reassurance, this was it. After all, when was the last time Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stood within a few feet of each other, expressing the same sentiment?

Paris had, indeed, become the capital of the world, as French President Francois Hollande remarked. But the country that has been slipping steadily from one of the twin engines to the new “sick man” of Europe is torn. It’s an understatement to say France will be tested hereafter on its commitment to the liberties it has proudly cherished, and for which it has just paid a heavy price. The deployment of 10,000 troops across sensitive areas, announced on Monday, hints at the persistence of threat and the near certainty that those liberties will be curtailed.

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World leaders didn’t stand shoulder to shoulder in quite this manner even after 9/11. And the last time civil society rose across borders was to oppose the Iraq war. While that cannot have had anything to do with the conspicuous absence of the US — represented only by its ambassador to France — French society will have to look now at how deep its unity really is. For a lot of immigrants languishing in the banlieues, the overarching Enlightenment values of the state and of Sunday’s march hold no appeal. Most of them live in France’s 717-odd “sensitive urban zones”.