Europe
13 January 2015
Last updated at 00:03 ET
Police have been deployed to guard Sarcelles' synagogue
His friend, also 18, nods in agreement as we stand on a street in this Paris dormitory town, famous in France for its large Sephardic Jewish community.
"They were warned but they kept on mocking the prophet," he continues. "But you cannot kill for that. You cannot go against press freedom in France. Still, they will have to answer to God."
"Real Muslims condemn these attacks," adds a third man, 22 and also Muslim. "Those who committed them were insane. The attack on the kosher supermarket was a catastrophe for France and for the world. If you kill one man it is like you kill all of humanity. That is how we think."
We stand chatting openly on the pavement but nobody wants to be identified.
French values Mistrust of the media runs deep since an outburst of violence last July when police held rioters back from entering the town's Jewish area as they raged at Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Sarcelles has a sizeable Muslim community
An invisible line marks the beginning of the Jewish area on
Avenue Paul Valery, scene of the confrontation with the police. It
starts just before a Holocaust monument and a synagogue.
There is no sign of trouble but it has been guarded by CRS riot police since last week.
David, a kosher businessman I encounter, is so dismayed by the deterioration he perceives in community relations in France that he foresees a time when the "great majority" of its half-million or so Jews will emigrate.
But the Muslim teenager accuses French media of exaggerating the divisions in Sarcelles, where Jews now make up about a quarter of the 60,000-strong population. "We say one thing, you might write another," he suggests, smiling.
When I ask how he and his friends relate to the town's Jewish community, they say they have Jewish friends and "nothing has changed". "Mosques get attacked but that doesn't make the news," he adds.
The older of the three speaks with real warmth of the French values of liberty, equality and fraternity which were schooled into him.
Solidarity rallies were staged across France on Sunday, gathering millions of people
"When I go on holiday to Morocco, I know I could never live
there because people make me feel French," he says of his ancestral
country. "But in France I am made to feel Moroccan," he adds.
"Am I going up to the Jewish area?" asks the younger man. The Jews got the nice part of Sarcelles, he explains, a little sourly, while we got this, gesturing back to the long blocks of uniform five-storey council flats stretching down to the railway station.
Actually, there was a time when Jewish immigrants from the former French colonies lived there themselves in numbers, and some Jews still do, but the demographic has changed.
By the mosque near the station, old men sit and chat in Arabic.
'Provocations' A Tunisian Muslim pensioner I meet gives two reasons why he shunned Sunday's national unity march in Paris, while condemning the attacks.
Like the teenagers, he is indignant at the cartoons Charlie Hebdo published: "It set out to provoke people for its own amusement.
"It attacked their religion. Make fun of yourselves if you
will, but leave others alone. The media is like a car: you need to have a
licence to be on the road, otherwise you will be a danger to others.
Charlie had no licence to put people's lives at risk with their
provocations."
His other reason is the presence at the march of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he calls "the biggest terrorist in the world" because of the Gaza conflict.
He insists he is not anti-Jewish, saying he had Jewish friends back in Tunisia.
'Nobody safe' Another Muslim pensioner I meet separately, a man from Morocco, says he has Jewish friends too, here in France, men he will "have a coffee or beer with".
He takes a rather detached view of Charlie Hebdo, dismissing it as a fringe paper he never wanted to read. "But I am 200% in support of freedom of expression," he declares.
More Muslims might have attended the march had they not felt "shame", he suggests, at the actions of gunmen claiming to defend Islam. "Muslims may also fear retaliation by jihadists if they take to the streets," he adds.
He himself is uneasy after the attacks. "Nobody is safe now," he says before directing me to the nearest tram stop.
As my tram glides out of Sarcelles, I reflect that I have not seen a single "I am Charlie" poster or pencil symbol since my arrival yet the quiet battle of ideas here is no less intense than in Paris itself.
Police have been deployed to guard Sarcelles' synagogue
French Muslims disgusted by the shootings in Paris may nonetheless have reasons for not embracing the slogan "I am Charlie".
"For a Muslim, the Prophet Muhammad is more important than
their own parents," says the young man I meet in Sarcelles, his face
twisted with contempt for the caricatures Charlie Hebdo published.His friend, also 18, nods in agreement as we stand on a street in this Paris dormitory town, famous in France for its large Sephardic Jewish community.
"They were warned but they kept on mocking the prophet," he continues. "But you cannot kill for that. You cannot go against press freedom in France. Still, they will have to answer to God."
"Real Muslims condemn these attacks," adds a third man, 22 and also Muslim. "Those who committed them were insane. The attack on the kosher supermarket was a catastrophe for France and for the world. If you kill one man it is like you kill all of humanity. That is how we think."
We stand chatting openly on the pavement but nobody wants to be identified.
French values Mistrust of the media runs deep since an outburst of violence last July when police held rioters back from entering the town's Jewish area as they raged at Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Sarcelles has a sizeable Muslim community
There is no sign of trouble but it has been guarded by CRS riot police since last week.
David, a kosher businessman I encounter, is so dismayed by the deterioration he perceives in community relations in France that he foresees a time when the "great majority" of its half-million or so Jews will emigrate.
But the Muslim teenager accuses French media of exaggerating the divisions in Sarcelles, where Jews now make up about a quarter of the 60,000-strong population. "We say one thing, you might write another," he suggests, smiling.
When I ask how he and his friends relate to the town's Jewish community, they say they have Jewish friends and "nothing has changed". "Mosques get attacked but that doesn't make the news," he adds.
The older of the three speaks with real warmth of the French values of liberty, equality and fraternity which were schooled into him.
Solidarity rallies were staged across France on Sunday, gathering millions of people
"Am I going up to the Jewish area?" asks the younger man. The Jews got the nice part of Sarcelles, he explains, a little sourly, while we got this, gesturing back to the long blocks of uniform five-storey council flats stretching down to the railway station.
Actually, there was a time when Jewish immigrants from the former French colonies lived there themselves in numbers, and some Jews still do, but the demographic has changed.
By the mosque near the station, old men sit and chat in Arabic.
'Provocations' A Tunisian Muslim pensioner I meet gives two reasons why he shunned Sunday's national unity march in Paris, while condemning the attacks.
Like the teenagers, he is indignant at the cartoons Charlie Hebdo published: "It set out to provoke people for its own amusement.
His other reason is the presence at the march of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he calls "the biggest terrorist in the world" because of the Gaza conflict.
He insists he is not anti-Jewish, saying he had Jewish friends back in Tunisia.
'Nobody safe' Another Muslim pensioner I meet separately, a man from Morocco, says he has Jewish friends too, here in France, men he will "have a coffee or beer with".
He takes a rather detached view of Charlie Hebdo, dismissing it as a fringe paper he never wanted to read. "But I am 200% in support of freedom of expression," he declares.
More Muslims might have attended the march had they not felt "shame", he suggests, at the actions of gunmen claiming to defend Islam. "Muslims may also fear retaliation by jihadists if they take to the streets," he adds.
He himself is uneasy after the attacks. "Nobody is safe now," he says before directing me to the nearest tram stop.
As my tram glides out of Sarcelles, I reflect that I have not seen a single "I am Charlie" poster or pencil symbol since my arrival yet the quiet battle of ideas here is no less intense than in Paris itself.
Paris attacks
Features and Analysis
-
A huge police operation in France has brought to an end a series of terror attacks in and around Paris. Here is what we know about what happened.
Three days of terror
-
Jewish and French
-
Who sent gunmen?
-
Divisions persist
-
Who is Boumeddiene?
-
Remembering cartoonists
-
Gunmen
-
Victims
-
'Unprecedented terror'
-
Eyewitnesses
-
Defiant editor
-
France rallies
-
Cartoonists' response
Video
-
Huge crowds and some 40 world leaders have gathered in Paris for a unity march, after 17 people were killed during three days of deadly attacks.
One million Parisians cry for freedom
-
Marseille Muslims condemn violence
-
Unity in the suburbs of Paris
-
Video 'shows supermarket gunman'
-
Crowds unite in applause in Paris
-
World leaders link arms to march
More Europe stories
RSS-
This week's edition of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo will show a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a "Je suis Charlie" sign.
Charlie Hebdo cover depicts Muhammad
-
Thousands in rival German rallies
-
Ukraine ex-leader wanted by Interpol
No comments:
Post a Comment