this trace left by the Toulouse terrorist but whose scope remains unknown
The Toulouse Football Club jersey bearing the name of Mohamed Merah caused a major controversy but also revealed the trace left by the terrorist in certain sections of French society. A brand whose scope we still do not know, for lack of studies on the issue.
Provocation ? True Membership? The affair of the Toulouse Football Club jersey bearing the name of Mohamed merah and the number of his victims, 7 people in total including three children at the Jewish school Ozar-Hatorah from Toulouse in 2012, a provoked a deep reaction of rejection, but a also revealed a low noise phenomenon. That of a mythological of the Toulouse terrorist.
“The day after the attacks, we saw people in certain neighborhoods say that he had shakeAdvance Frank Touboulpresident of crif Midi-Pyrenees. If you think 10 years later I’m surprised, not at all. When we see how our society is declining, I say to myself rather than in the years to come: on will have rewritten history again. We will hear ignoble things. We will be there and the people of Toulouse bruised by these attacks to defend the truth. And clearly decide that this guy was a bastard.“
Through the atrocity of his actions, with particularly anti-Semitic motivations, Mohamed merahwhether consciously or not, sought to leave a trace. “This is an idea very present in the anarchist milieu underlines Jérôme Ferret, Lecturer in sociology at the University of Toulouse 1 Capitole. We seek posterity above all by deed.“A strategy elaborated at the end of the 19th century developed by anarchist circles and named”propaganda by the fact” in the hope of “raise public awareness.“
As reported by the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, in March 2012, Mohamed Merah would have pronounced this sentence “You kill my brothers, I kill you” before designating his first murder of a military man. But thn including killing three children at the Jewish school Ozar-Hatorahthe little Toulouse delinquent has, whether we watch it or not, turned a corner and marked a turning point: “Beyond the despicable act, the killings of Mohamed Merah in 2012 are a real historical marker. A marker that strikes the collective unconscious“adds Jérôme Ferret.
In the eyes of some Mohammad merah is a symbol of the atrocities of jihadism, but for others he is a model. In 2016, Jean Claude AzamEmeritus Professor of Economics at theToulouse school of economics (University from Toulouse 1)use the Greek myth ofErostre to explain, in an articlepartly jihadist terrorism. Erostre destroyed the Temple of Artemis in 356 BC JCconsidered one of the seven wonders of the world. He doesadored as the only motivation to explain his criminal act, his wish to become famous and pass on to posterity.
The researcher evokes the case of Mehdi Nemmoucheterrorist in competition with the Toulouse killer: “Mahdi Nemmouche (who) declares: “I will do five times merah to July 14. This Frenchman of Algerian origin, suspected of having jihadist experience in Syria, killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24, 2014. In a significative way, Nemmouche sought to compete with merah on the front line of the killing of the Jews.”
Faced with this observation, Jean-Claude Azam will go so far as to propose methods to help reduce the publicity of these terrorist attacks “they receive in the media“.
Despite everything, the public authorities are struggling to stem the phenomenon, at a time when theanti-Semitism continues to grow. “Now you got terrorism apologies every monthalso underlined Christophe Crumb representative of the union of internal security executives. Recently, at Montparnasse station, two individuals shouted that they wanted to blow everything up. The apology of terrorism exists permanently and is fed by young people who have not asked for awareness of what it can represent and hurt people in suffering.“
Several years ago, many incidents within schools have since been renamed, such as these Muslim students in 2016 refusing an excursion to Oradour-sur-Glane then the testimony of a deportee ; in 2022, students from a college in Toulouse left their class during the broadcast by their music teacher of a Beatles song due to Ramadan or in Montauban where secularism has continued to increase in a high school.
In this context, what can Mohamed represent? merah for college and high school students? Going to the exit of a secondary school, located in a popular district of Toulouse, the first observation is that this name most often evokes nothing to the majority of these adolescents or young adults, aged 16 to 18 .
The few responses to the mention of the Toulouse terrorist most often relate to the consequences of his murders on the image of the Muslim religion. “He’s a terrorist, he’s murder. Violence. All these are ideas that should not exist and that we assimilate too much to Islam“says a young high school student. One of his comrades, also Muslim, assures “get nervous“at his mention. “We are always assimilated to this” deplore-t-she. At the same time, she evokes the perception that those around her may have: “mohammed merah attacked the Israelis, let’s say, because there is a conflict between Israel and Palestine. He may have wanted to defend this idea and make people react andn doing that. Yes, I heard that. Me, I understand this argument, but I remain divided.“
It remains to be seen what is the proportion of this type of interpretation of the attacks of March 2012 in Toulouse and Montauban? What is the nature of the phenomenon? Membership? Fascination? Revolt? Unanswered questions. No collective work has been done to date on this trauma in the history of Toulouse.