La Marche Silencieuse

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings France has been the focus of world attention for a few days. French people and those of us who live here are mostly in shock at the horror of the events and seeking ways of responding and recovering.

Every night since the shootings took place there have been gatherings in public places. People wanted to express their sorrow, their condolences, their outrage and their support for freedom of expression. The Twitter hashtag #JeSuisCharlie and the phrase Je Suis Charlie is to be found everywhere.

The mayor of Preuilly makes a speech, surrounded by elected officials from the Touraine du Sud.

Occasionally someone will question what it means. A fellow blogger has written a post entitled I'm not Charlie, I'm the Doorman. Another reader has commented on a friend's blog that they suspect the phrase means different things to different people. Maybe it does. For me it's a reference to the famous scene in the movie Spartacus, and is primarily a way of simply expressing support. In addition, and most importantly, combined with the carrying of a pencil, it indicates that the cartoons and writing will go on and cannot be killed off by violent acts.

The cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo were frequently offensive, but in France, my impression is that is seen as neither here nor there. It is the viewer who chooses to be offended and that is their problem would be the attitude of many French people. Satire wins over offense every time in France. But of course this is complicated by the fact that the satirists are entirely self appointed, as are those who are offended and those judging the quality of the satire. Added to that, to be effective, satire has to be funny as well as pointed. Mostly Charlie Hebdo managed that, but sometimes they were just crude and offensive for their own amusement. Allowing this sort of freedom of expression also means having to managing the line between insulting derision and inciting hate crimes.  It's a complicated old world, and freedom of expression is more complicated than most issues.

This is about half the crowd, heading down to cross the bridge.

One of the reasons behind the huge outpouring of grief in France for the cartoonists in particular is that they were associated with more than just political satire. A couple of them also illustrated kids comic magazines and all of them worked for other magazines and papers besides Charlie Hebdo. Even if you didn't read Charlie Hebdo (and the reality is not that many people did) everyone knew who these people were and had read them. Several of them also worked for the much more widely read satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaîné.

Ideas of solidarity, liberty, citizenship and secularism are widely disseminated in the French culture and education system. After the success of the spontaneous rallies on the night of the initial shootings at the Charlie Hebdo offices, the energetic, decisive and omnipresent Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, proposed a march to demonstrate support for Republican values. Political leaders were summoned and invited so that it would be a cross party event. The march was set to take place simultaneously throughout France at 3pm on Sunday. Some places, like Preuilly, held their own march, other town authorities organised a bus so that residents could travel to a larger town and participate in the march there.

The march turned out to be extraordinarily well attended, with our estimate being around a thousand people. I asked a policeman what he thought and he agreed and said it was maybe even a bit more. What the march was not was silent, but talking was kept to a low respectful hum and everyone was quiet for Bertu's short speech.  Then the national anthem was sung, rather beautifully it has to be said. By chance there were some very good singers in the crowd, but as a French friend rather ruefully pointed out, the lyrics of the Marseillaise are absolutely frightful!

Some people, including Bertu, were referring to it as a marche blanche (a solemn march). Preuilly organised the march as principal commune in our communauté des communes, so many of the people attending were from the surrounding villages. Lots of people had stuck pens in their hats or were wearing Je Suis Charlie badges. People of all ages, colours, and presumably creeds were there. The march made its way down the main street from the town hall, across the bridge, around the fire station to the bourg neuf and up again to pick up the main road and retrace our steps.

The back half of the march rounding the corner at the fire station.

Like I said, it's a complicated old world. After some thought we decided to participate in the march in Preuilly. We didn't want to be supporting political opportunism, but we did want to support our neighbours. We have never been Charlie Hebdo readers, but did feel that the lives of everyone involved should be acknowledged in some public and official way, and more widely, that free speech and the law should be defended. Publishing provocative cartoons should absolutely not be countered with guns no matter how offended you are. Whichever way you look at it, the recent events are a tragedy and leaves the world divided into those who are sorrowful and those who are angry.

When it comes to reactions to the past few days I fall into the sorrowful camp and it can knock the stuffing out of you for a while. Those of us who react with sorrow do so quietly and rarely raise our heads above the parapet. But we hope we can recognise the moment to do so when it is necessary. I do think that the gathering together of so many diverse heads of state in Paris was a remarkable thing and that it is not all just lip service. I also think that this could be the beginning of a genuine grassroots movement to improve relations between the religions. We may have to guard against threats to freedom of movement and heavy handed security measures as the politicians struggle to deal with the terrorist issue though. We've demonstrated our support for freedom of speech. It would be a shame to have that undermined by the loss of other liberties.