The curfew and the terrorist threat stress France

A woman holds an issue of the magazine 'Charlie Hebdo' during the demonstration this Sunday in Paris in rejection of the attack against the beheaded professor last Friday.YOAN VALAT / EFE

Everything happened in a short time: a few hours in which a terrorist beheaded a teacher who spoke to his students about freedom of expression, and the entry into force of the curfew in Paris and eight other large French cities.

President Emmanuel Macron would have liked to dedicate the fall to pulling the country out of recession.

It was not possible.

He already knew that the virus could return and that the fractures were deep.

The reality of the second wave of the pandemic and the threat of radical Islamism have finally prevailed.

Today France is a country in tension, and the French, a people seeking protection.

One weekend can offer a photo of a country: its doubts and fears;

their demons and their heroes.

And its paradoxes.

As the editorial writer of

explained this Sunday

, France is moving these days between national union and social distance.

At around 5 p.m. on Friday, in the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine municipality near Paris, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee cut off the head of the history and geography professor Samuel Paty.

Seven hours later, at midnight, the curfew — a measure that for some French people evokes the Nazi occupation and the Algerian war — entered into force in Paris and eight other major cities.

On Sunday, at the demonstration in memory of Samuel Paty, two realities overlapped.

The stupor over an attack that hits the core of the Republic: the school.

And, at the same time, a prudent schedule, three in the afternoon, with enough time to go home.

The curfew will be in force for four weeks - extendable for another two more if the Parliament authorizes it - between nine at night and six in the morning.

Macron opens a new chapter in his presidency.

The decision to lock up nearly 20 million French people - those residing in the affected cities - every night after the total lockdown in the spring was a constitutional failure.

The test and trace strategy has not worked.

After a summer in which many lowered their guard, the rebound in the pandemic calls into question the management of the de-escalation or de-refinement, led by the current Prime Minister, Jean Castex.

Macron advocated then, in the internal discussions of the Government, not to neglect the economy or social cohesion, in the face of the caution of those who defended to follow the advice of scientists to the letter.

By now decreeing the curfew - actually a nightly lockdown - he assumes the need for balance.

The work will continue;

fun, no.

The curfew should end by December 1 at the latest, in time for Christmas shopping and in the hope that by then the second wave is under control and families and friends can celebrate the holidays in peace.

Macron has also captured that the French are not hostile in principle to new confinements as long as the solid social protection network and the economic muscle of the state is firm and in place.

“The French, really, are in favor of tightening the nuts again on covid-19.

They want more things to be banned.

A new confinement would even almost reassure them, ”veteran political scientist Roland Cayrol said before the curfew announcement.

“The idea of ​​the French as defenders of freedom is a joke.

They are afraid and want the state to act ”.

Macron has understood.

The president has transmuted from a liberalizing leader to a protective leader, convinced - as the nineteenth-century thinker Alexis de Tocqueville is often quoted - of "the ardent, insatiable, eternal, invincible passion" of the French for equality.

The ability to protect the French from the pandemic without increasing inequalities or feeling unfair - regional or class - can be assessed when the curfew ends.

The terrorist threat is more complex.

No alternative

On October 2, the president presented in a speech a plan against "Islamist separatism."

The death of Professor Samuel Paty corroborates some of his diagnoses - the agitation of Islamist groups or the central role of the school in defending the Republic - but will increase the pressure to translate words into concrete actions.

It is difficult for the opposition to articulate alternatives.

The constitutional powers of the Fifth Republic allow a president with a majority in the National Assembly to decree at his discretion on confinements and unconfinements.

Criticism is heard on the right and the extreme right for the supposed government laxity in the face of radical Islamism, but few proposals beyond possibly unconstitutional drastic measures.

"We are at war," Macron said in March when the pandemic hit France.

"They will not pass," he declared on Friday after Paty's beheading.

The rhetoric seems interchangeable;

the fighting is different.

Priority: safety in schools

French President Emmanuel Macron is preparing for the next few days "concrete actions" against Islamist organizations and agitators, in addition to strengthening security in educational centers. This was communicated last night to his main ministers at an extraordinary meeting of the so-called Defense and Security Council after the beheading, on Friday near Paris, of Samuel Paty, a professor of history and geography at the hands of a terrorist identified as Abdoulakh Anzorov. The first measure is aimed at locating the authors of 80 messages of support for the aggressor registered on social networks. It is also about finding a way to persecute those who spread extremist messages and those who, taking refuge in the fight against Islamophobia, preach hatred. Among the 11 arrested in connection with the bombing were the father of a Paty student and a preacher. They both agitated a fierce campaign of harassment against the professor, which allegedly ended up inspiring the terrorist.