The Prime Minister further said, “In the fight against terrorism, extraordinary measures are necessary, but no exceptional measures that deviate from our rule of law and values.” The Social Democratic Prime Minister also announced a database for terror defenses and reported that extremist detainees will now be placed in special sections to counter the radicalization of other prisoners.
France has 10,000 soldiers deployed to guard places like synagogues, mosques, airports and strategic points like the Eiffel tower and the Champs Élysée Palace in Saint-Honoré in Paris where the President of France resides. Nearby kingdoms of The Netherlands, Monaco, Belgium and the United Kingdom are also in the highest security alert to protect their citizens. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also assured her people of the utmost protection her government could give them.
– A preliminary estimate of 15,000 French Jews could emigrate to Israel this year amid fears of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. The forecast issued by head of the Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky might double the figure who left France for Israel last year, following last Friday’s deadly attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris by a French jihadist which left four Jewish citizens dead. The attack prompted an appeal to French Jews by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who told them they would be welcome if they wished to move back to Israel. The number of Jews leaving France for Israel has climbed steeply since 2012 when four people were killed in an attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse by another Islamist extremist.
– A short story of Francois-Michel Saada’s unexpected death last week…As he approached the kosher Hyper Cache store in eastern Paris last Friday, a frantic female shop assistant refused to open the door, whispering,”No, no, please leave.” Not understanding that she was trying to save him, the 63-year-old insisted, saying he needed to buy bread for the Jewish sabbath. Moments later, he was shot dead by the armed jihadist who forced the frightened woman to open the door at gunpoint to save her own life. Mr. Saada was buried yesterday along with three other Jewish victims of the attack, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab and Philipe Braham, in an emotional mass funeral at Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul cemetery. The bodies of all four had been flown to Israel after their families requested that they be laid to rest there. Thousands of French-born Israeli Jews paid their respects at a ceremony which was addressed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Reuven Rivlin, the nation’s President and the French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal who bestowed the Legion d’Honneur (Legion of Honor), France’s highest honor on the four victims. At the same time, ceremony at police headquarters in central Paris, French President Francois Hollande posthumously bestowed the Legion d’Honneur on the three officers – Franck Brinsolaro, Ahmed Merabet and Clarissa Jean-Philippe whose coffins were draped in the French flag.
My deepest condolences to the families of the latest victims of these atrocities. You are all in my prayers.
