PARIS, JANUARY 2015: THE TERRORIST ATTACKS AND THE REACTIONS

Abstract

The aim of my presentation is first to examine precisely the killings. Who are
the killers? Which are their motivations? Why the killers did it? What about their
backgrounds, their ideologies, their beliefs? Secondly it is necessary to observe the
evolution of the vocabulary used in the public space by journalists, politicians, ordinary
people... and the reactions (police, government, media, panic, false alarms... but also
stigmatization of Muslims in general and more than a hundred anonymous attacks against
mosques and other places related to Muslim people, like shops...) Third, how can we
analyze the reactions of ordinary people on one side and of prominent political leaders on
the other? What were the different meanings of the mass demonstrations just after the
attacks in France? In Paris? Was the question of freedom of expression really the main
question? Which are all the other questions hidden behind the unanimous "Je suis
Charlie"? What are the different and contradictory meanings of this sentence? We will
try to go beyond much of confusions and hypocrisy. For such a precise analysis it is
necessary to go deeper in some important details, very often forgotten, about the
magazine Charlie Hebdo, about all the victims, about the murders, about the weaponabout French society and its contradictions, about the different kind of reactions...