Macron to pay homage to French terrorism victims today
President Emmanuel Macron is to pay homage to French victims of terrorism today (Wednesday September 19), and will meet victims and family members of victims after the official ceremony.
The event, scheduled for 15h, will take place at Les Invalides. Macron’s wife Brigitte will be present.
The ceremony will be the 19th annual event to remember French victims of terrorism, organised by victim associations l’Association Française des Victimes du Terrorisme, and la Fédération Nationale des Victimes d’Attentats et d’Accidents Collectifs.
The event is always held on September 19, in homage to the 1989 bombing of DC-10 UTA flight 772, which crash landed in Nigeria on its way to Paris on that day that year, killing 170 people, of which 54 were French.
President Macron has taken part in several memorial events since becoming leader, including the ceremony in Nice on July 14 last year; and the hommage national service that was held for the French colonel Arnaud Beltrame, who died in March after taking the place of a hostage during a terrorist attack.
On September 7 this year, the government was presented with a report by a dedicated committee, on how best to remember recent terrorism in France.
The report suggested that a memorial museum be created in the former Palais de Justice, in l’île de la Cité, in Paris. The committee also recommended that the date of March 11 - chosen by the European Union - be retained as a day to remember the victims of all terrorist attacks on European soil.
The committee also considered how to incorporate lessons on terrorism into the national school curriculum, and also suggested that filming the main terrorism trials could help educate and share awareness against the atrocities.
France has been on especial alert since January 2015, when attacks in Paris sparked a wave of Islamist extremist attacks throughout the country, killing 246 people.
