Nice attack: 'Such friendly faces' - city in shock after murders

 

IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS

Outside the doors of Notre-Dame, the bright light of a Nice morning rose on Friday on small collections of flowers and candles left by local residents overnight. The message on one bouquet reads, "Nice is still standing. Rest in peace."

For the living, though, peace seems far from reach.

Outside the church was the treasurer of Notre Dame, Jean-François Gourdon. He knew one of the victims well: the church warden, Vincent Loquès.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTJEAN-FRANÇOIS GOURDON

image captionVincent Loquès, a devout Catholic, had worked at the basilica for more than 10 years

He told me how he'd left Vincent in the church yesterday morning, just before the attack, and had returned to find him dead - a large wound to his throat.

"I'm completely devastated," he said, describing the emptiness he felt. He went straight to tell Vincent's wife. "As soon as she saw me, she knew," he said.

BBC

You dedicate your life to helping people and then this happens. It creates a big hole

Jean-François Gourdon
Church treasurer

The couple had just bought a house in a nearby village and were making plans to move. They had been due to celebrate Vincent's birthday this week.

This is the third terrorist attack France has suffered in just over a month.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTFACEBOOK

image captionAnother of the three victims, Simone Barreto Silva, had lived in France for 30 years

After a knife attack on staff at a television company in Paris, and the beheading of a history teacher in a nearby suburb, there are now three more victims, killed inside this church.

President Emmanuel Macron has been increasingly insistent that this is a battle for France's fundamental values, and that the country "will never give in" to what he called Islamist terrorist attacks.

media captionFrench President Emmanuel Macron says France 'will never give in'

Military patrols are being doubled, to provide extra protection to churches and other places of worship, and also to schools when they return from holiday next week.

The government has already launched a frenzy of initiatives after the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty a fortnight ago: clamping down on radical Islamist rhetoric and associations, curbing online hate speech, and terrorist funding; and promising more support for schools.

That murder of Mr Paty, for showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, triggered a surge of secular defiance in France.

At the teacher's memorial, President Macron defended France's right to offend, saying the country would never give up making cartoons.

This time, though, the target was religious. The message: faith offers no protection and France no place of refuge from attack.