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On Sunday, January 10, 2016, French politicians and the public gathered in Paris to remember the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks.
Last year, on Sunday, January 11, a huge gathering took place in Paris.
This year’s attendance was sparse by comparison. Whereas 1.5 million people marched peacefully last year in Paris, only a few thousand went to Place de la République on Sunday.
This is probably because so many went there for a commemoration of the victims of the November 2015 attacks.
Sunday’s gathering ended a week of smaller ceremonies to remember the attack on the satirical magazine’s staff on January 7 and on the kosher supermarket on January 9.
Earlier in the week, a stone plaque with the names of Charlie Hebdo‘s victims was unveiled at the building where they used to work. It was covered up soon afterward, because cartoonist Georges Wolinski’s name was misspelled. The City of Paris is rectifying the error with the stone mason.
Wolinski’s widow Maryse was further dismayed that the French government had invited 72-year-old pop star Johnny Hallyday — the French Elvis — to sing a special memorial song during Sunday’s ceremony. Hallyday was never a favourite of the magazine’s cartoonists, who often lampooned him. It shows a certain generosity of spirit that he agreed to write the lament then perform it.
Maryse Wolinski was not the only unhappy woman remembering last year’s massacre.
Police officer Franck Brinsolaro, who guarded the late editor Stéphane ‘Charb’ Charbonnier, was also gunned down that day. The Guardian reported that his widow has filed a legal complaint over security failings.
Mrs Brinsolaro said in an interview last week on French radio:
For me, Franck was sacrificed.
She explained:
He saw the dysfunction, he rued the lack of security at the offices, he said people could slip through.
Indeed, that is also what Le Canard Enchaîné — the French equivalent of England’s Private Eye — has revealed.
The paper reported on testimony to the police which states that, three months prior to the attack, a worker in the building which housed Charlie Hebdo‘s offices saw a stranger outside who told him that the magazine’s employees were being watched because they were ridiculing Islam’s prophet. The worker later identified the stranger as Chérif Kouachi, one of the January 7 killers. Although the information months before the attack was passed on to police, it is unclear whether it was acted upon. Apparently not.
January 7 did not go unobserved by Islamic extremists. Just as French president François Hollande was addressing police in Paris — one of the commemoration events — a man brandishing a meat cleaver and shouting ‘Allah Akhbar’ was demanding to be let into the police station in the 18th arrondissement district of Goutte d’Or (‘drop of gold’). Police warned the man, also wearing a fake suicide vest, to stop. When he repeatedly ignored their instructions, they opened fire and fatally wounded him.
These two events took place at 11:30 a.m., the exact time of the Charlie Hebdo massacre last year.
As I write, the Goutte d’Or extremist’s identity has not yet been established. He was carrying no ID papers, mandatory for everyone in France, however, he did have a piece of paper with the IS flag printed on it and a note written in Arabic taking responsibility for his acts.
Initially, he was thought to have been a homeless Moroccan who was convicted of theft in the south of France in 2013. At the weekend, however, The Telegraph reported that:
people presenting themselves as his relatives have come forward and have identified the man as a Tunisian called Tarek Belgacem. They denied that he was involved in terrorism.
The French authorities have not confirmed any name but interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said he was “undoubtedly” Tunisian.
Not surprisingly, French police found a mobile phone on his person. Interestingly, it had a German SIM card.
Consequently, police have been working with their German counterparts to find out more about this man.
It transpires he had recently been living in a German refugee centre for three months before travelling to Paris.
The Telegraph article stated:
The man had stayed in refugee accommodation in Recklinghausen in the west of the country, and had reportedly painted a symbol associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) on a wall in shelter.
This case proves the difficulty in admitting ‘refugees’. The Telegraph reports (emphases mine):
The man had painted an Isil symbol on a wall in the refugee shelter in September, according to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. It is not yet known when authorities became aware of the painting.
The news magazine Spiegel Online reported meanwhile that the man, understood as having been registered as an asylum seeker, had already been classed by German police as a possible suspect after he posed at the refugee centre with an Isil flag, but he disappeared in December.
The man had given different nationalities at each registration, once saying he was Syrian, another time saying he was Moroccan, and on yet another occasion, Georgian.
The link to a refugee shelter in Germany, and the apparent ease with which the man was able to register with the authorities, risks further inflaming a debate over the 1.1 million asylum-seekers that the country took in last year.
All this comes in the wake of New Year’s Eve assaults on women not only in several cities and towns in Germany, but also Austria, Switzerland and Finland.
Of the assaults in Cologne, which took place between the city’s cathedral and main railway station:
Heiko Maas, Germany’s justice minister, said on Sunday that he suspected that the attacks in Cologne that have left the country reeling were not the result of an opportunistic mob mentality but a planned attack.
“No one can tell me that it wasn’t coordinated and prepared,” he told newspaper Bild am Sonntag. “My suspicion is that this specific date was picked, and a certain number of people expected. This would again add another dimension [to the crimes].”
Angela Merkel is once again under rightful criticism for bringing chaos to Germany and the rest of Europe.
Those who want to agree with her might wish to note the following information relating to New Year’s Eve arrests:
Police have detained for questioning a 22-year-old Tunisian, was registered at a refugee centre in a neighbouring state, while two Moroccans aged 18 and 23, were apparently in the country illegally, according to their lawyer.
“Our clients are modern nomads,” Ingo Lindemann said. “They’re not war refugees but more like grown street children who move with the flow of refugees across Europe.”
These are hardly Emma Lazarus’s ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ who arrived at Ellis Island a century or so ago.
Lassana Bathily’s calm, cool thinking saved lives in the Hyper Casher attack on January 9, 2015.
The 15 or so hostages he sequestered in the cold room in the supermarket’s basement will be eternally grateful to him for saving their lives. Two young children, a baby and a toddler, were among them.
Calls came nearly immediately for the French government to recognise his brave act with an honour.
The government granted him French citizenship, a passport and a medal on Tuesday, January 20.
Bathily, a practising Muslim, was born in June 1990 in the northwest of Mali. The eldest of three children, he moved to Paris in 2006 to be with his father.
Between 2007 and 2009, he attended technical school in the 19th arrondissement and obtained a diploma qualifying him to work as a tiler. His English teacher Alexandre Adamopoulos remembers him as ‘always smiling, disciplined, participating’.
Bathily intended on pursuing a professional qualification but realised that he needed to work.
In 2009, the French government refused him papers allowing him to stay. As he had arrived illegally, he was told that he would have to leave the country by the end of 2010. He told his technical school teachers. They were able to help him obtain the proper permit in 2011, which he had renewed annually as required by law.
In July 2014, Bathily applied for French nationality. By that time, he had been working for Hyper Casher for four years.
On January 9, 2015, after making sure the group in the basement of Hyper Casher were safe, he left the shop via the goods lift and went in search of the police. At 1:30 that afternoon, they handcuffed him, believing him to be an accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly. He went on to supply the special forces police — the RAID — with details of the building, hostage locations and the store layout as the siege progressed.
Afterward, Bathily received public thanks in speeches by Benjamin Netanyahu and John Kerry. Petitions went online for official recognition.
French president François Hollande personally telephoned Bathily to say that his request for naturalisation:
would be treated with the respect that his heroism merits.
It did not take long. On January 20, at 6:30 p.m. Bathily received French citizenship in an impressive ceremony at Place Beauvau, where the Interior Minister’s offices are.
The ceremony took place in Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s large reception room. Le Monde reported that it was full of journalists, VIPs, representatives from the major faiths, various government ministers, including Cazeneuve and Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Both Valls and Cazeneuve spoke to and about Bathily. Cazeneuve gave him two books about France, one of which is a collection of photographs.
Bathily, somewhat overwhelmed by events, listened whilst looking at the floor. Then it was his turn to speak. He told the ministers and audience:
I’m not a hero, I’m Lassana and I’ll stay that way.
He added that the loss of his colleague — and friend — Yoan Cohen deeply affected him:
I lost someone I liked a lot, someone with whom I shared a lot of laughs.
In a televised interview, Bathily said:
It could be a Christian, an atheist or a Muslim, if I see a bad person killing, it hurts me. I didn’t just do it for the Jews. It’s simply inhuman. You can’t let an innocent person be killed.
Of France, he stated:
I like this country because even if you have nothing, even if you don’t have your papers, don’t have money, they help you. It’s a great country. I really like France.
Would that more citizens felt that way.
My apologies. I had intended to write before now about the siege of the printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goële and at Hyper Casher in Vincennes, both of which took place on January 9, 2015.
The hostages’ stories are still worth telling, even though some would consider this old news. Those involved no doubt still have vivid memories of the day. I pray they are recovering.
The Kouachi brothers’ printing plant siege
For most of the day those of us keeping up with the story had the impression that there was only one hostage at the printing company. So did Saïd and Chérif Kouachi.
When the plant’s owner Michael Catalano saw the two men approach his premises armed with AK-47s and a rocket launcher, he told his employee Lilian Lepere to hide.
Lepere, a graphic designer, went to hide in the company’s kitchen. He cooped himself up in the cabinet underneath the sink.
He stayed there, bent over from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., when the siege ended.
Whilst Catalano was reassuring the Kouachis that no one else was in the building, joking with them as a distraction and plying them with coffee, Lepere was building up the nerve to tell someone what was going on.
At one point, he had a close shave when one of the Kouachis entered the kitchen for refreshments. He opened up the refrigerator, right next to Lepere’s hiding place.
The terrorist settled on tap water from the leaky sink. Lepere told reporters:
He took a drink from the sink and I could see his shadow. My back was against the pipe and I could feel the water flowing.
It was like you see in the movies. At that point the brain stops thinking, the heart stops beating, you stop breathing.
Lepere texted his father, requesting that he notify police of what was happening. Afterward, Lepere was able to communicate directly with the police. As the terrorists spent most of the time in Catalano’s office next door, Lepere was able to text their movements and describe the layout of the building to the police.
It might sound straightforward but, as he explained:
I couldn’t use my mobile at first. I was in the foetal position and couldn’t get to it easily.
Then I took the risk. My first instinct was to turn it to silent, then vibrate but I had to make sure it wasn’t touching the cabinet.
The vibrations would have been heard.
When I got messages to my family one of them was [near to] the police so I was immediately reassured to know I was in touch with the outside world.
I knew then I could give them information with my knowledge of the plant.
And I knew that a team would come for me.
I watched the final two hours of the siege on BBC24 as it happened. Terrifying. It really was like a movie. I cannot imagine what Lepere and Catalano must have experienced. A doctor was on hand to treat them after the shootout ended.
Lepere told reporters that he was in no state to attend the rally in Paris that Sunday but that he fully supported it and was thinking of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Casher attacks.
Amedy Coulibaly’s Hyper Casher siege
At 1 p.m. the same day, Amedy Coulibaly attacked Hyper Casher in Porte de Vincennes in Paris. His siege took place simultaneously with that of the Kouachi brothers.
Four men died and, at Benjamin Netanyahu’s invitation, have been buried in Israel. Coulibaly had at least one Kalashnikov and another similar weapon which he placed on the counter. At one point, one of the victims thought he could end the situation. Coulibaly, holding the Kalashnikov, had turned his back to the hostages. The man picked the other gun up off the counter. He attempted to fire at Coulibaly but the weapon jammed, which was why Coulibaly had set it aside. Coulibaly quickly turned around and shot the man in cold blood. The other three had already been killed.
When Coulibaly entered the shop firing away, employee Lassana Bathily, a 24-year old Muslim from Mali, led a small group of customers to the back of the store and down to the basement.
The basement has two cold stores. Nearly everyone went into the same one. Unfortunately, Mikael B and his three-year old son went into the other. Coulibaly sent another shop employee down to summon anyone who was there. The employee told Mikael that he and his son would have to join the others upstairs.
Bathily was able to keep the others in the cold store before escaping in the goods lift to alert police. So that they could be as safe and comfortable as circumstances permitted, he turned off the electricity and shut the door. Two children were there with their parents: an 11-month old baby and a toddler. Both were in good health upon release five hours later.
The mother of one of the hostages knew where her son Ilan was. Instead of risking putting him in danger by texting him, she contacted the police and gave them Ilan’s phone number. This helped police track his and the other hostages’ precise location.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Mikael B said that he and his son witnessed the shooting of the fourth victim. Coulibaly told Mikael to call the media. Mikael’s little boy cried, calling Coulibaly a ‘bad man’. Mikael followed the terrorist’s instructions, and Coulibaly had successive conversations with various media outlets. In at least one, he admitted to killing the policewoman the day before and said he was working with the Kouachis, who had committed the Charlie Hebdo massacre and, that afternoon, were at the printing shop.
Afterward, Mikael turned his phone off. Then, discreetly, he turned it back on and rang the police. He kept his phone on the rest of the afternoon. Near the end of the drama, Mikael said:
It was obvious that the terrorist was preparing to die. He said it was his reward. He had a weapon in each hand and boxes of cartridges nearby. He suddenly began to pray.
My mobile was still on. The police had heard it all. Minutes later the shop grille was lifted. We knew it was the start of the assault.
Up to this moment, the grille at the front door had been down. This, too, was an incredible action-film ending. As I watched it on BBC24, a security specialist guided viewers through what was happening.
The grille went up slowly, then the police threw three flares through the entrance. The security specialist said that these would not harm anyone. However, they would be dazzled and deaf for 30 to 60 seconds, giving police just enough time to get Coulibaly. He ran towards the entrance. Police fired at him. He collapsed.
The survivors, meanwhile, had crouched on the floor, as per police instructions given to Mikael earlier. They thanked the special forces who ended the operation. The Telegraph reported:
The special forces found that Coulibaly had booby trapped the store, leaving a door packed with several kilos of explosives. They also found that he had on him a stockpile of ammunition, submachine guns and automatic weapons.
“The hostages all thanked us,” said Jean-Pierre. “Some of my colleagues had tears in their eyes.”
And, after a day of rest, he was back at work – providing security for the massive solidarity march through Paris.
“I haven’t watched the video of the assault yet,” he said. “I think I might wait a bit.”
Afterward, the hostages in the basement told Lassana Bathily how grateful they were to him for keeping them safe during the tragic ordeal.
Tomorrow’s post has his story.
Meanwhile, the Nouvel Observateur reports that Hyper Casher’s manager Patrice Oualid cannot stop thinking about what happened that day. Coulibaly’s gunfire grazed his arm, and he ran out the back of the shop to get emergency help. If the bullet had hit him differently by a millimeter, he would have died:
I’m alive. My friends are dead. It isn’t easy. I left the shop because I wanted to save my own skin. I rerun the events of that day every night. I’m thinking. I can’t sleep. I keep seeing images and asking myself what I should have done.
Hyper Casher’s owner wants him to reopen the shop to show that the terrorists haven’t won. But Oualid doesn’t want to go back. Nor, he says, do the women behind the tills.
Oualid is now thinking of moving to Israel:
France is my country. I was born here. It was great living here, but no longer. [Israel] is a country at war, true, but it knows how to defend itself.
My prayers go to these survivors and their families.
Families of dead terrorists can have problems if they request burial ground in their country of origin.
After Mohammed Merah — who murdered four paratroopers and one Jewish schoolgirl in 2012 — was shot dead by police following a lengthy stake-out, his family asked for permission to bury him in Algeria. Algerian officials refused their request, even though his father was living there. Merah was buried in Toulouse, the city of his birth.
The family of Amedy Coulibaly — who killed four at Hyper Casher and a policewoman the day before — asked officials in Mali for permission to bury him there. Coulibaly was born in Juvisy-sur-Orge near Paris but his parents were born in Mali. Malian officials refused, giving no explanation. He was buried on Friday, May 23, in Thiais, a Paris suburb.
As for the Charlie Hebdo killers, Saïd Kouachi was buried in Reims on Friday, January 16. Chérif Kouachi was buried in the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers at midnight on Saturday, January 17. According to reports, no one attended, not even his wife. Kouachi’s grave is unmarked, possibly to deter similar-minded persons from making pilgrimages to see it.
Under normal circumstances, an unmarked grave is not unusual in Islam. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was buried on January 23 in such a manner. It is in keeping with Wahhabi customs.
The French newspaper La Voix du Nord (Northern Voice) has investigated and revealed a few surprising facts about Amedy Coulibaly who held the kosher hypermarket hostage and murdered four people on Friday, January 9, 2015.
Amazingly, Coulibaly financed his weapons in a very ordinary way. He took out a consumer loan from the mainstream lender Cofidis (H/T: L’Internaute).
La Voix du Nord published a copy of his loan application. The article explains that he asked for and received €6,000, which he applied for on December 4, 2014. A weapons specialist told the newspaper that the weapons found at Hyper Casher were worth €6,000 on the black market.
Coulibaly agreed a 60-month repayment plan, the first instalment of which was due on Monday, January 5.
When applying for it, he supplied all the necessary documentation: a copy of his French ID card, his latest phone bill, a Crédit Agricole bank statement, documentation showing his annual pay and a payslip from a company in the Paris suburbs.
He told Cofidis that his title was Project Manager, he began working for the company in May 2007* and that his taxable income for 2013 was €33,714. Some will find that rather modest, but in France, that is rather enviable. In November 2014, he earned nearly €3,000. In these terms, he was certainly middle class.
The newspaper attempted to contact Coulibaly’s employer, but the number is out of service.
A spokesperson from Cofidis told La Voix du Nord that they are under no legal obligation to ask borrowers how they will use a loan. The spokesperson said that the amount Coulibaly requested was an average sum and that most of their customers generally use that size of loan for home improvements.
The newspaper ran another article on January 14 explaining why they revealed this information. It is in response to the online comments saying ‘Useless information’ and ‘Who cares?’
Emphases below are in the original:
Amedy Coulibaly’s savagery during the hostage taking at Hyper Casher at the Porte de Vincennes in Paris nearly made us forget that we didn’t have an operation by someone excluded from our society, someone on its margins. No, Amedy Coulibaly was integrated, lived in an apartment among other citizens in our society, earned a not insignificant amount of money — €2,900 per month after tax — and used all the avenues of a consumer society.
No, he was not necessarily financed by foreign groups. This made him more difficult to apprehend.
The second bit of information is that he contracted this in December 2014. Amedy Coulibaly was mounting his operation, of this there can be no doubt. This means that the attack was premeditated.
These data are neither futile nor useless. The more we know about the lifestyle of the three men who sowed terror last week in terms of the way they prepared their operations — enquiries which must continue in the days to come — the more French society will be able to protect itself in future.
So, let’s not assume that these extremists are poor, marginalised and dependent upon foreign terror cells for money.
Excellent work on the part of La Voix du Nord. Security services everywhere should take note instead of asking for more intrusive powers.
* Was Coulibaly being somewhat economical with the truth here? He was in prison between 2010 and March 2014. However, because of his good conduct, he was allowed to take courses and to work.
Churchmouse Campanologist 