News Digest

First person: As hostage standoffs end, no cheering from Parisians

Watching the denouement of France’s worst terrorist attack in modern history from a Paris cafe has been a mighty test in cultural understanding, to say the least. Imagine that if a similar attack happened in the US: if masked gunmen killed 12 people at a newspaper, the suspects escaped, and later sparked not one but two hostage situations. Watching the end of it would bring widespread relief among Americans – I imagine clapping, maybe even cheering. Here, as I sit typing away, no one is paying attention. Not from indifference – the city has rallied strongly against the attack. But there is a sense, perhaps peculiarly French, that the greater blow was already struck at the magazine, and that while the attackers are dead, the situation is not over.

For me this isn’t a relief, I think this is just the beginning.

A waiter at a Paris cafe

I told the waiter in the cafe at Republique that I imagine that if people were talking over the developments of such a major news story in the U.S., they might be yelled at by indignant clientele who wanted to hear what was being said. He says maybe that’s because the French are less optimistic. He says his own viewpoint, that this just marks the beginning, is typical of a French pessimism that worse things are always to come. Maybe that’s why people weren’t paying attention. The French might not be addicted to cable play-by-plays but Matthieu Plessis, a cafe patron, says he expects crowds on Sunday, called to pay tribute to the Charlie Hebdo editors, the free press, and the nation itself, could be a turning point. “The turnout will be huge.”

Maybe it’s a way of protecting ourselves. We keep a distance. But the reaction to the [Charlie Hebdo attack] could make a difference.

Matthieu Plessis, a patron of the Paris cafe