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| Myriam Monsonego |
The track, “MRH” by rapper BORO700, references Mohamed Merah, who murdered a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, and Salah Abdeslam, who was convicted for his role in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. The lyrics also invoke the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people were slaughtered.
The victims murdered by Merah outside the Hatzolah Jewish school in Toulouse were Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, Gabriel and Arieh, aged four and five, and eight-year-old Myriam Monsonego, the daughter of the school’s principal.
These were not anonymous casualties of some distant conflict. They were children attending school, a rabbi and a father, people whose lives were ended by a man who had made the murder of Jews his objective. One might reasonably expect their memory to command a degree of respect, even among those who have little regard for France’s Jewish community. Apparently, that expectation is too ambitious.
One video circulating on social media shows students singing the track at François-Villon high school in Beaugency, in the Loiret region, during a school blockade on October 1.
The students could be heard shouting French lyrics translated into English as: “Like Mohamed Merah, dodging the cameras,” and “Bataclan, I shot him with my eyes, manhunt, Salah Abdeslam.”
The Orléans prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation into suspected “apology for terrorism.” According to French media reports citing the prosecutor, three minors were placed in police custody on October 7. The term “apology for terrorism” refers to the public presentation or justification of terrorism, or the favorable portrayal of terrorist acts or their perpetrators, in circumstances that may constitute a criminal offense.
The investigation concerns the song’s lyrics and does not, by itself, establish the intentions of the students who sang them. That distinction matters. But it does not make the content any less disturbing.
The song also appeared in a video filmed on October 4 inside Saint-Hilaire church in Soullans, in western France. This was a separate incident, unrelated to the high school blockade.
A group of Muslim teenagers entered the church, where they sang and danced to the rap track celebrating Mohamed Merah and Salah Abdeslam. The church was subsequently closed following the incident, which was described as a desecration.
The municipality confirmed that the young people involved were minors. It urged residents not to circulate the footage, warning that doing so could expose the teenagers and inflame tensions.
“There is every reason to believe that the young people concerned did not fully appreciate the impact of their actions or the meaning of some of the words that were broadcast,” Soullans Mayor Vincent Jolly wrote on Facebook.
This is a remarkable degree of solicitude for the possible innocence of those involved, particularly when set against the complete absence of any comparable innocence in the crimes being celebrated.
One can understand the desire to prevent minors from being publicly identified and subjected to harassment. That is a legitimate concern. But protecting young people from online vigilantism is not the same thing as pretending they could not have understood the significance of their behavior.
They entered a church and danced to a song invoking men responsible for the murder of Jews and the slaughter of concertgoers. Perhaps some of them did not understand every word. Perhaps some were simply following their friends. The investigation may establish more about their motives. But the instinct to explain away the incident before those facts are known is itself revealing.
At a time when European governments repeatedly insist that social cohesion is paramount, one might ask why the burden of demonstrating tolerance so often appears to fall on the people whose institutions have been violated and whose communities have been targeted.
Between March 11 and 19, 2012, Mohamed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, carried out a series of jihadist attacks in Toulouse and Montauban. He killed seven people, including two soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children aged three, five and eight.
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| Merah, human post-digestive matter |
“The Islamic faith has nothing to do with the insane motivations of this man,” former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in response to the murders.
Merah had used a GoPro camera to record his attacks, producing footage set to music and verses from the Qur’an.
Sarkozy’s declaration belongs to a long tradition of political reassurance in the face of Islamist violence. The intention is understandable. No serious person should hold every Muslim responsible for the crimes of a jihadist. But the sweeping insistence that Islam has nothing to do with the motivations of an Islamist terrorist is not a serious way to understand the problem.
It recalls George W. Bush’s remarks less than a week after September 11, when he assured the American public that “the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.”
Such statements may offer immediate political comfort. They also risk closing down the very inquiry that a democratic society needs to conduct. If a terrorist invokes religious ideas, identifies himself with an Islamist cause and deliberately targets Jews, it is not enough to declare that his actions have nothing to do with religion. One must examine what the perpetrator believed, how he interpreted those beliefs and why others might find his example worthy of imitation.
The alternative is to substitute comforting declarations for an understanding of the forces at work.
The wording of “MRH” employs slang and is difficult to translate precisely, but its references to Merah, Abdeslam and the Bataclan are explicit.
Mohamed Merah was the man who attacked the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse. Salah Abdeslam was a participant in the November 2015 Paris attacks, in which gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people across several locations. Ninety people were murdered at the Bataclan concert hall, while others were killed at restaurants and outside the Stade de France.
These are not obscure historical figures whose names have been repurposed in some incomprehensible artistic exercise. They are among the most recognizable perpetrators of mass murder in modern French history. Their victims included Jews murdered because they were Jews and ordinary people enjoying an evening of music.
When their names appear in a song performed by students in a school protest and in a church, the obvious question is what the performers understand themselves to be celebrating.
That question becomes particularly uncomfortable against the wider background of unrest in France. School protests, confrontations with authorities and episodes of violence have intensified the debate over immigration, integration and the ability of the French state to maintain order. Some reports have described students engaging in destructive behavior and confrontations with teachers and police. Such incidents should be assessed on their individual facts, rather than automatically attributed to the religious or ethnic backgrounds of those involved.
But neither should those backgrounds become unspeakable when they are relevant to a discussion of ideology, integration or political intimidation.
There is a persistent tendency in parts of the European political establishment to treat these questions as inherently suspect. To raise concerns about Islamist radicalism is to risk being accused of stigmatizing Muslims. To question the consequences of mass immigration is to invite accusations of xenophobia. To suggest that some forms of religious extremism are incompatible with liberal democracy is to be told that one is endangering social cohesion.
The irony is that social cohesion cannot be preserved by refusing to discuss the things that undermine it.
President Donald Trump addressed the unrest in a post on Truth Social, writing: “What’s happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass migration. This isn’t about schools; this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great country!”
Trump’s formulation is sweeping and politically charged. It does not establish that every protest, every act of vandalism or every incident involving Muslim youths can be explained by immigration or Islam. Nor does the appearance of a single rap song prove a coordinated effort to impose religious rule on France.
Yet it would be equally foolish to dismiss every concern about immigration and Islamist influence simply because Trump expresses those concerns in provocative terms. His language is not the whole argument, and rejecting his rhetoric does not absolve French leaders of the responsibility to confront the underlying issues.
The French government, for its part, has pushed back against outside interpretations of the protests.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told a parliamentary committee: “You’ll get the Iranians’ version, perhaps the version from some Israelis, perhaps the version from some Americans.”
He said French diplomatic missions were working to communicate the country’s own account of events “so that we have our own narratives to disseminate, rather than being subjected to those of others.”
The language of competing narratives is revealing. A government is entitled to correct inaccurate accounts of events in its own country. It is not obliged to accept every interpretation offered by foreign politicians. But there is a difference between correcting falsehoods and seeking control over the interpretation of uncomfortable facts.
The question is not whether France should allow Iran, Israel or the United States to dictate its understanding of French society. It should not. The question is whether French officials are prepared to examine the evidence without treating criticism from abroad as the principal problem.
Students have been filmed singing lyrics that explicitly reference men responsible for terrorist atrocities. Teenagers have been filmed dancing to the same song inside a church. Prosecutors have opened an investigation into suspected public justification of terrorism. These are the facts as currently reported. Their significance deserves examination, not dismissal as a foreign narrative.
And if the song is merely an instance of youthful provocation, the authorities should be able to establish that through evidence and appropriate investigation. If it reflects something more serious, they should be prepared to confront that possibility as well.
The danger is that France's political leadership will become so preoccupied with managing the language of the debate that it neglects the substance of the problem.
France has a substantial Muslim population, estimated at around one-tenth of the country, although precise figures vary and religious affiliation is not comprehensively recorded in French census data. The overwhelming majority of French Muslims are not terrorists, and their rights must be protected as fully as those of any other citizens. But a government that takes integration seriously must also be willing to discuss the challenges posed by religious extremism, the persistence of antisemitism and the consequences of failing to enforce common civic standards.
These are not mutually exclusive obligations. A country can defend Muslims against collective blame while insisting that the murder of Jewish children is not a subject for celebration. It can protect minors from public harassment while holding them accountable for misconduct. It can oppose anti-Muslim prejudice while confronting Islamist extremism.
Indeed, a liberal democracy that cannot make these distinctions is in danger of surrendering both its moral clarity and its authority.
The history of Europe offers ample warning about the consequences of political leaders who believe that an uncomfortable problem can be managed by avoiding its name. The lesson of Munich is not that every contemporary crisis resembles the appeasement of Hitler. It is that the pursuit of immediate reassurance can become a substitute for confronting a genuine threat.
France does not need theatrical denunciations or simplistic explanations. It needs a government willing to establish the facts, enforce the law and defend the principles on which its republic rests.
The proper response to a song invoking the men who murdered Jewish children and massacred concertgoers is not to leap to conclusions about every Muslim in France. Nor is it to explain away the incident before the investigation has run its course.
It is to ask, without embarrassment and without intimidation, why these men are being invoked at all, what their names signify to those singing about them, and whether France's institutions are prepared to confront the answers.
A republic that cannot ask those questions for fear of offending its own citizens has a much deeper problem than an offensive rap song.
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