Anxiety lurks in France’s summer

Tensions creeping into society amid declarations of ‘life goes on’

With every new terror attack, French citizens stoically declare that “life goes on”, but despite this show of defiance, a creeping anxiety has taken hold of society.

Outwardly, the French summer is in full swing, restaurant and bar terraces – targeted in a November attack on Paris – are packed and vibrant, beaches are covered with sunseekers and streets as busy as ever.

However beneath the surface, many are feeling the strain after a string of terror attacks over the past 18 months.

“There is a cumulative effect. At first (a terror attack) is an unexpected event, but now we are in a situation where we fear it happening again,” said Evelyne Josse, a Belgium-based psychologist and trauma expert.

Users of a popular French online medical forum describe panic attacks on the metro, being paralysed with fear at the prospect of taking trains to go on holiday or going to the beach, with one woman writing she feels that going out in a crowd is like playing Russian Roulette.

“The anxiety is always there,” 32-year-old Thibaut Chaize said on his way to work in Paris.

“We are afraid but we can’t stop living,” he said.

The cluster of terror strikes began in January 2015, when 17 people were killed in a spree of violence in Paris, including at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a Jewish store.

Then in November, when 130 people were killed at restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Paris, the reality of an ever-present danger began to set in, with government talking of “war” and citizens growing used to the sight of soldiers on the streets.

In between, a foiled attack on a high-speed train in France and the Brussels metro and airport bombings only added to the list of places that could be targeted.

In July, when an extremist drove a massive truck into a crowd in the Riviera city of Nice, crushing 84 to death, and a priest was murdered in a church in Normandy, it became clear that terror went beyond big cities.

“I phoned my son during the Paris attacks. Now it is he who called me. You never know, it can happen anywhere,” said Eric Lecornu, 57, from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray where the priest was killed last week. — AFP