There has been no let-up in the aftermath of the attack at the winter ball in the small town of Crépol on Saturday, November 18th, which resulted in the death of Thomas, a 16-year-old boy. For a week now, the political authorities and the French media have been vying with each other to distract public opinion from the root of the problem: rampant crime against a backdrop of immigration that no longer spares any part of the country.
A week after the tragedy, around 80 protesters gathered in Romans-sur-Isère in the La Monnaie neighbourhood, the district from which Thomas’ murderers originated, to show their support for the victim and try to intimidate the perpetrators’ entourage. They came from all over France and clashed with the police, with 24 of them getting arrested.
On social networks, an alternative story is taking shape, filling in the gaps in the mainstream media’s account. One activist was allegedly kidnapped by young people from La Monnaie before being released thanks to police intervention. Also on social networks, accounts from members of police unions reported the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the forces of law and order to intervene against the activists, forcing the authorities to seek reinforcements well beyond the jurisdiction of the local units.
According to BFM TV, the mobilisation of these youths has received a boost from the events that have been shaking the Irish capital of Dublin for several days, following the attack on five people by an Algerian migrant.
Other rallies in support of the victim were organised spontaneously, mainly in the Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne region. In Valence, a procession in tribute to Thomas was held, flying French flags. When the authorities wanted to ban some of these gatherings, as in Lyon, on the orders of the Rhône prefecture, a new date was immediately set for another demonstration. A rally is also planned in Paris, on the Place de la Sorbonne, in the heart of the student quarter.
The main news channels were keen to give prominence to the expedition of right-wing militants to Romans-sur-Isère, some even invoking the term ‘ratonnade,’ inherited from the Algerian war, to describe the settling of scores by Europeans against Arabs. No one was killed or injured in Romans-sur-Isère, but in the eyes of some, this scuffle has become more important than the initial murder of Thomas. The ‘ultra-right’—a neologism in recent use designed to further demonise the old ‘far-right’ as outdated—is accused of wanting to make the death of the young rugby player “a martyr for its cause.”
On television, journalists feigned naïveté and repeated over and over again the ‘vagueness’ of the first affair, the lack of information on the exact motive of the killers and their origin, only to be met with the cold anger of politicians from the various right-wing parties. Interviewed by the public radio station France Inter, Marine Le Pen condemned the “blindness and cowardice” of the political class on the subject. Marion Maréchal told BFM TV that the prospect of an ethnic war in France was getting closer every day. As for Éric Ciotti, president of the Les Républicains, he bravely argued before journalists that the real tragedy was not the Romans-sur-Isère demonstration but Thomas’s death.
Under pressure from public opinion, a minute’s silence was eventually observed for Thomas at the French National Assembly on Tuesday, November 28th, after prominent figures such as Marion Maréchal deplored its absence, unlike when Nahel died last June.
For the leading editorialists, the blame for the disorder has now been shifted onto the shoulders of the Romans-sur-Isère demonstrators. Journalist Patrick Cohen explained on France 5 that the assailants were nice guys who had come to “flirt a bit” and “have some fun.” It is fascinating to note that this type of argument is totally banned by the Left when it comes to rape cases: it is forbidden to consider that a woman might behave or dress in a provocative way that could lead to an attack. But in the case of acts of violence against a backdrop of ethnic warfare, the fault will always lie with the provocative ‘white guys.’
In addition to the press, the judiciary has also aligned itself with an understanding of the facts that prioritises violence by focusing on the so-called ‘ultra-right,’ imposing swift and heavy sentences on the demonstrators arrested in Romans-sur-Isère, in contrast to the laxity applied in other cases of violence, when the victims come from the ranks of the police, for example. Gérald Darmanin has since congratulated himself on having avoided “a scenario of a little Irish-style civil war.”
The rift is deepening between the media, the political class, the administration of justice, and the French people, who are regularly confronted with bloody violence. As government spokesman Olivier Véran planned to visit Crépol, a report by a local resident, gathered by the CNews channel, is on the way to going viral for its ability to put into words, with great lucidity and precision, the tragedy of the last few days and, more broadly, the decaying state of French society—abandoned defencelessly to a growing barbarism, poorly controlled by a decaying justice system:
He explains with emotion:
Ministers have always defended the France of the suburbs against the France of Thomas, rural France, the France that brings up its children properly, and not with hatred of France and the French. We can’t take it anymore; we’ve understood everything for a long time. We know what’s going to happen. The next ones won’t be coming with knives. It will be with automatic weapons. For those people, the Algerian war is not over.
The incomprehension and anger have only grown stronger as the investigation has progressed, revealing that the courts have no intention of considering a racist motive in the attack in Crépol, despite the many accounts given of the openly hostile comments made that evening against white people.
“Thomas’s family is asking that the racist nature of the attackers be taken into account,” said the mayor of Romans-sur-Isère, who in recent days has made no secret of her annoyance with the media. This is not what the Valence public prosecutor’s office intends to acknowledge.
By a kind of providential coincidence, Emmanuel Macron’s former mayor of Lyon and minister of the interior, the socialist Gérard Collomb, has just died. He is known in France for having, on the day he left the ministry, given a prophetic speech whose Cassandra-like tone surprised everyone at the time, especially those in his camp: “Today we live side by side … I fear that tomorrow we will be living face to face.” As he leaves this world, his prophecy is about to be sadly fulfilled.
Interpreting Crépol’s Crime: An Inversion of Reality
Two men prepare a banner which reads “Thomas Rest in Peace” in Romans-sur-Isère in southeastern France on November 22, 2023.
Photo: OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE / AFP
There has been no let-up in the aftermath of the attack at the winter ball in the small town of Crépol on Saturday, November 18th, which resulted in the death of Thomas, a 16-year-old boy. For a week now, the political authorities and the French media have been vying with each other to distract public opinion from the root of the problem: rampant crime against a backdrop of immigration that no longer spares any part of the country.
A week after the tragedy, around 80 protesters gathered in Romans-sur-Isère in the La Monnaie neighbourhood, the district from which Thomas’ murderers originated, to show their support for the victim and try to intimidate the perpetrators’ entourage. They came from all over France and clashed with the police, with 24 of them getting arrested.
On social networks, an alternative story is taking shape, filling in the gaps in the mainstream media’s account. One activist was allegedly kidnapped by young people from La Monnaie before being released thanks to police intervention. Also on social networks, accounts from members of police unions reported the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the forces of law and order to intervene against the activists, forcing the authorities to seek reinforcements well beyond the jurisdiction of the local units.
According to BFM TV, the mobilisation of these youths has received a boost from the events that have been shaking the Irish capital of Dublin for several days, following the attack on five people by an Algerian migrant.
Other rallies in support of the victim were organised spontaneously, mainly in the Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne region. In Valence, a procession in tribute to Thomas was held, flying French flags. When the authorities wanted to ban some of these gatherings, as in Lyon, on the orders of the Rhône prefecture, a new date was immediately set for another demonstration. A rally is also planned in Paris, on the Place de la Sorbonne, in the heart of the student quarter.
The main news channels were keen to give prominence to the expedition of right-wing militants to Romans-sur-Isère, some even invoking the term ‘ratonnade,’ inherited from the Algerian war, to describe the settling of scores by Europeans against Arabs. No one was killed or injured in Romans-sur-Isère, but in the eyes of some, this scuffle has become more important than the initial murder of Thomas. The ‘ultra-right’—a neologism in recent use designed to further demonise the old ‘far-right’ as outdated—is accused of wanting to make the death of the young rugby player “a martyr for its cause.”
On television, journalists feigned naïveté and repeated over and over again the ‘vagueness’ of the first affair, the lack of information on the exact motive of the killers and their origin, only to be met with the cold anger of politicians from the various right-wing parties. Interviewed by the public radio station France Inter, Marine Le Pen condemned the “blindness and cowardice” of the political class on the subject. Marion Maréchal told BFM TV that the prospect of an ethnic war in France was getting closer every day. As for Éric Ciotti, president of the Les Républicains, he bravely argued before journalists that the real tragedy was not the Romans-sur-Isère demonstration but Thomas’s death.
Under pressure from public opinion, a minute’s silence was eventually observed for Thomas at the French National Assembly on Tuesday, November 28th, after prominent figures such as Marion Maréchal deplored its absence, unlike when Nahel died last June.
For the leading editorialists, the blame for the disorder has now been shifted onto the shoulders of the Romans-sur-Isère demonstrators. Journalist Patrick Cohen explained on France 5 that the assailants were nice guys who had come to “flirt a bit” and “have some fun.” It is fascinating to note that this type of argument is totally banned by the Left when it comes to rape cases: it is forbidden to consider that a woman might behave or dress in a provocative way that could lead to an attack. But in the case of acts of violence against a backdrop of ethnic warfare, the fault will always lie with the provocative ‘white guys.’
In addition to the press, the judiciary has also aligned itself with an understanding of the facts that prioritises violence by focusing on the so-called ‘ultra-right,’ imposing swift and heavy sentences on the demonstrators arrested in Romans-sur-Isère, in contrast to the laxity applied in other cases of violence, when the victims come from the ranks of the police, for example. Gérald Darmanin has since congratulated himself on having avoided “a scenario of a little Irish-style civil war.”
The rift is deepening between the media, the political class, the administration of justice, and the French people, who are regularly confronted with bloody violence. As government spokesman Olivier Véran planned to visit Crépol, a report by a local resident, gathered by the CNews channel, is on the way to going viral for its ability to put into words, with great lucidity and precision, the tragedy of the last few days and, more broadly, the decaying state of French society—abandoned defencelessly to a growing barbarism, poorly controlled by a decaying justice system:
He explains with emotion:
The incomprehension and anger have only grown stronger as the investigation has progressed, revealing that the courts have no intention of considering a racist motive in the attack in Crépol, despite the many accounts given of the openly hostile comments made that evening against white people.
“Thomas’s family is asking that the racist nature of the attackers be taken into account,” said the mayor of Romans-sur-Isère, who in recent days has made no secret of her annoyance with the media. This is not what the Valence public prosecutor’s office intends to acknowledge.
By a kind of providential coincidence, Emmanuel Macron’s former mayor of Lyon and minister of the interior, the socialist Gérard Collomb, has just died. He is known in France for having, on the day he left the ministry, given a prophetic speech whose Cassandra-like tone surprised everyone at the time, especially those in his camp: “Today we live side by side … I fear that tomorrow we will be living face to face.” As he leaves this world, his prophecy is about to be sadly fulfilled.
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