All over France, blue-white-red national flags flew from buildings on Friday. President Francois Hollande asked the people to hoist the tricolor in patriotic solidarity with the 130 people terrorists massacred two weeks ago in Paris.
And in a grand square, Hollande called people together to mourn the killings in a national ceremony.
Attack survivors appeared as guests of honor alongside grieving families of those killed and diplomats representing countries of victims hailing from outside France.
The gathering spot is laden with symbolism.
Paris has many expansive public places, but the Hotel national des Invalides is a collection of museums and monuments to centuries of French military might. The remains of Napoleon Bonaparte are interred there.
It’s a fitting place for Hollande to stand after beating the war drums against ISIS all week long.
France at war
Since the November 13 attacks, France has been at war with the militant group, Hollande has held, and he has vowed to destroy it. On Monday, French war planes flew airstrikes against ISIS from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.
And Hollande’s appointment calendar filled up with meetings with world leaders — starting with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday and ending with a visit to Moscow to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
His rallying cry has drawn encouraging, if small, echoes.
Cameron called for Britain “to take action now, to help protect us against the terrorism seen on the streets of Paris and elsewhere.” But his Labour Party opposition has said it would oppose the Prime Minister’s proposal to expand UK airstrikes on ISIS positions in Iraq to include Syria, citing a lack of coherent strategy.
Russian conflict of interests
Pulling Russia into the mix has proven testy.
Russia is not a member of the U.S.-led global coalition against ISIS, although, on Thursday, Putin said that his country is ready to cooperate with the coalition.
But there is a conflict of interests in Russia’s approach to Syria and that of the Western allies. The White House has said autocratic President Bashar al-Assad must go if there’s going to be a peace in the nation torn by war since 2011 — a belief France shares.
Russia is an ally of Assad.
Also, France and Britain are already part of a U.S.-led coalition that has been bombing ISIS targets, while Russia is conducting separate airstrikes against ISIS but also against other more moderate groups that oppose Assad. And Russia has coordinated with the forces of Syria’s President.
Adding to tensions, Turkey, a NATO member and a staunch Assad opponent, shot down a Russian military jet this week, saying the plane had crossed into its airspace and ignored multiple warnings. Russia says the plane had been in Syrian airspace.
Hollande also spoke with President Barack Obama, but the United States has shown no clear sign of budging from its vow there would be no U.S. ground incursion against ISIS.
Germany reverses stance
Germany is constitutionally hampered in participating in attacks outside its borders, but when Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Paris this week, Hollande reportedly called his close ally out.
In a reversal in its previous stance, Germany committed four high-tech reconnaissance fighter planes and logistical help to the fight against ISIS, German news site Spiegel Online reported.
“When the French President asks me to think hard about what more we can do, then it is a responsibility for us to think hard about it,” Merkel told journalists on Wednesday.
As France mourns its dead, a key suspect in the attacks is still at large. It has been more than a week since an international arrest warrant was issued for key suspect Salah Abdeslam.
Investigators haven’t detailed what they believe his role was in the coordinated series of attacks, but police say Abdeslam may have dropped suicide bombers off at the Stade de France stadium then made his way to another Paris neighborhood. His fingerprints were found in a car connected with the attacks.
