By: V4 Agency
Local politicians wanted to rename a street to pay tribute to the two victims who died in a terrorist attack more than three years ago in the country’s second largest city, but the mayor rejected the proposal. Coincidentally, the head of state has recently floated the idea of renaming hundreds of streets nationwide after black and Arab individuals.
Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan caused outrage by sweeping the city council meeting proposal submitted by Senator Stephane Ravier off the table without dialogue. The senator suggested a street be renamed after the two victims of a fatal knife attack on 1 October, 2017, at Marseille’s central railway station, according to the weekly Valeurs actuelles.
The two young girls, aged 17 and 20, were massacred by a 29-year-old knife-wielding illegal migrant named Ahmed Hanachi, a Tunisian national, who kept shouting Allahu Akbar during the assault. Soldiers shot him dead but the lives of the two victims could not be saved. The Islamic State terrorist organization took responsibility for the attack.
More than three years after the attack, Stephane Ravier, an MP of the National Rally party, proposed that a street should be renamed Laura and Mauranne, to pay homage to the two young girls killed in the attack, but the city mayor outright rejected the motion.
Mr Ravier called the event scandalous on Twitter, adding that he merely wanted to pay tribute to the memory of two victims of Islamist terrorism. He signalled that he would file a complaint to the prefect against the mayor’s decision.
The socialist mayor’s stance is rather curious, especially in light of an earlier tweet he shared on 8 February, announcing that he renamed Avenue des Aygalades after Ibrahim Ali, a 26-year-old man killed by the National Front.
Apparently, however, Mayor Payan has refused to rename a city street after the two young victims of a terrorist attack, arguing that proposal was not even worthy of discussion.
The French government’s position on street names is surprising, to say the least. In December, President Macron himself proposed that hundreds of streets should be renamed across the country, French conservative weekly Valeurs actuelles reports. The unusual element of the president’s idea is that the streets currently bearing the names of French national heroes would be renamed after black or Arabic figures for the sake of diversity. Those figures include Cherif Cadi, the first Muslim student to be admitted to Ecole Polytechnique, a renowned university in Paris and Alfred Nakache, a former Auschwitz prisoner and Holocaust survivor, a champion swimmer and waterpolo player who also made it to the post-war Summer Olympics in London.
Right-leaning French thinker Gregory Roose, a columnist at Valeurs actuelles, disagrees with the idea, which he described as another example of Macron’s political ambivalence. He said President Macron speaks of the preservation of national culture, yet he would be glad to name French streets after black and Arab people. According to Roose, it would be a mistake to change street names and erect new statues, as they would not commemorate national values, but would merely please ethnic minorities, allowing for ethnic-religious communitarianism.