Commemorations of the attacks in Toulouse and Montauban: the Jewish community between pain and resilience
Toulouse and Montauban remember the monster in this month of March 2022.
10 years ago, Mohamed Merah, a radicalized petty criminal from Toulouse, killed three soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban. Imad Ibn Ziaten 30 years old in the Hers district of Toulouse on March 11, then on March 15 two soldiers aged 23 and 25 were killed near the 17th RGP in Montauban: Mohamed Legouad and Abel Chennouf. A third victim Loïc Liber miraculously survived.
On March 19, the scooter killer, although wanted, committed a massacre that would upset France, in the Roseraie district of Toulouse. At the Jewish school Ozar Hatorah, he coldly killed a school teacher, Jonathan Sandler (30 years old) as well as his children Arie (6 years old) and Gabriel (3 years old). The director’s daughter, Myriam Monsonego (8 years old) was shot at close range. All killed because they were Jews.
Families of victims still bruised
Today, the families of the victims are trying to rebuild themselves, each in their own way, to cope with the immense pain, “Samuel Sandler who lost his son and two of his grandchildren after losing his family in the concentration camps is of immense dignity and keeps his emotion to himself” explains the admiring Franck Touboul, president of Crif Toulouse/Midi-Pyrénées (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France). “Mr. Monsonégo, extremely discreet, focused on the survival of the school and that helped him”. Among the families of the injured or those who experienced the attack closely “there is something left unsaid that is more intimate” he confides.
The amputated but resilient Jewish community of Toulouse
Traumatized, the Jewish community of Toulouse experienced massive departures in the two or three years following the attack, but today “She wants to play the role of a French citizen impacted by this terrorist wave”. The Crif would like to resolve the fractures as quickly as possible “I also put myself in the place of all these Muslims in France who live peacefully and hear amalgams against their entire community on the air, it’s unbearable”.
Despite everything, anti-Semitism represents more than 70% of racist acts reserved in France “for a population equivalent to less than 1%” note Franck Touboul for whom “it is the heart of the reactor of the racist machine” in France. He hears “developing republican values” but concedes a failure in the fight against “suburban anti-Semitism and Islamist anti-Semitism” for which “the methods were not the right ones”. We must now also deal with the problem of social networks “spillway of hatred” car “To be forced to conceal one’s Judaism is totally unacceptable.”
The commemorations of March 19 and 20 in Toulouse
On March 19, the traditional gathering is organized in Square Charles de Gaulle on the initiative of the mayor of Toulouse. On March 20, a day of commemorations is planned at the Halle aux Grains in the presence of Isaac Herzog the dismissed president, Emmanuel Macron is also expected. A forum-debate on the defense of the values of the Republic, secularism and unity in the face of the threats of Islamism is scheduled. An official ceremony will follow at 4:45 p.m. Former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande will be present, and the Crif Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées has invited all the mayors or representatives of cities hit by terrorism for 10 years: Saint-Etienne du Rouvray, Nice, Marseille, Paris.. Finally in the last part, a play “the swimmer of Auschwitz” with the singer Amir and directed by Steve Suissa, telling the life of the Toulouse native Alfred Nakache, will be played. Franck Touboul hopes to see Toulouse “own this event open to everyone “.