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President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday described the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel as the “biggest anti-Semitic massacre of our century” as he hosted a ceremony paying tribute to the French victims.
Images of those killed or taken hostage by Hamas were held up by members of Macron’s guard as their families looked on, in the only such state event held outside Israel so far to mark the attack.
Macron described the attack by the Palestinian militant group as “barbarism… which is fed by anti-Semitism and propagates it”, vowing not to give in to “rampant and uninhibited anti-Semitism”.
The ceremony at the Invalides memorial complex in Paris paid tribute to the 42 French citizens killed in the attack on Israel by Hamas and the three others still missing, believed to be held hostage.
It was the biggest single loss of life of French nationals since the July 14, 2016 truck attack by an Islamist radical in the southern city of Nice that left 86 people dead.
Macron said France would work “every day” for the release of the remaining French hostages. “Their empty chairs are there,” he said at the ceremony.
“Nothing can justify or excuse terrorism,” he said.
Aspirations Of Peace
The presidency also said this week that France will provide an opportunity to remember French citizens killed in the Israeli bombardments of Gaza that followed the attack by the Palestinian militant group, without giving a date.
“All lives are equal, are invaluable in the eyes of France,” said Macron, describing war as a “tornado of suffering”.
He also vowed that France would “never allow the spirit of revenge to prosper” and that “in these challenges nothing should divide us”.
He said that France would do everything to “respond to the aspirations of peace and security for everyone in the Middle East”.
A violinist played French composer Maurice Ravel’s instrumental version of the Jewish Kaddish prayer as the victims’ names flashed up on a screen.
France, which also has a large Muslim minority, has the largest Jewish community in Europe with 500,000 people, according to the European Jewish Congress, and almost 100,000 citizens in Israel many of whom also have Israeli nationality.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war started with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,585 people, mostly women and children, in the besieged territory, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Strong Emotion
There has been controversy over the ceremony, with many families of French citizens who died in Hamas’s attack emphasising they do not want to see figures from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party in attendance, accusing it of failing to sufficiently denounce the attack and term Hamas a terror group.
A presidential official said that according to protocol, all members of parliament were invited to the ceremony and it “is up to everyone to assess the appropriateness or not of their presence, given families have spoken out and expressed strong emotion”.
Key figures from the LFI, including coordinator Manuel Bompard and parliamentary chief Mathilde Panot, were both present, with members of the public gathered outside booing them as they appeared on the big screen.
Far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, who rushed to emphasise solidarity with Israel in the wake of the attack, were also present.
The LFI, France’s biggest left-wing party in parliament, said it would also be appropriate for Macron to host a memorial event for the French citizens killed in Israel’s bombardments of Gaza.
There is no official information on the numbers of French nationals killed inside Gaza.
However, authorities announced on October 31 that two French children had been killed there. Sources close to the case who asked not to be named indicated that their mother was the subject of an international arrest warrant on terror-related accusations.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
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