The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel the “biggest antisemitic massacre of our century” as he led a ceremony paying tribute to the French victims, reports The Guardian.
Macron described the attacks by the Palestinian militant group as “barbarism … which is fed by antisemitism and propagates it”. He said: “We must fight against hatred, we must not give in to rampant, unbridled antisemitism. Nothing can justify or excuse terrorism.”
Macron said that in France a “spirit of revenge” should never be allowed to grow and “nothing should divide us”. He said France would “work tirelessly to respond to aspirations for peace and security in the Middle East”. He said that in the suffering of war, all lives were equal in France’s eyes.
France would “fight every day” to bring about the release of the hostages held since 7 October, Macron said.
The ceremony at the Invalides memorial complex in Paris was the first major international memorial event outside Israel since the Hamas attacks four months ago. The ceremony remembered the 42 French citizens killed in the attacks and the three others still missing, believed to be held hostage. It also honoured four freed French-Israeli hostages and six people injured in the attacks.
Portraits of each person were carried by republican guards. Three chairs were left empty for the people believed still to be held hostage. Many families were flown in from Israel by France on a special flight. The ceremony was broadcast live on a screen in Tel Aviv.