Je Suis Charlie

Our first week in Nice was marked by the murders, in Paris, of staff members at Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly) magazine, as well as hostages taken at a kosher supermarket in the suburbs.  The murders were the work of Islamic terrorists and were supposedly in retaliation for Charlie Hebdo's portrayals of Mohammed.  Islamic terrorists do not believe in free speech.  The French people do.

By the weekend, demonstrations and memorial marches were taking place all over France.  The theme:  Je Suis Charlie (I am Charlie).

These signs were carried in the marches and posted all over town:

We did manage to mix in with one of the demonstrations one day, but only because we didn't know it was happening and were kind of swimming upstream through the end of it.  Currently, we do feel quite safe here at the apartment:  there's a synagogue around the corner and earlier this week, there were six police cars there, protecting it.  It appeared that the police had the folks at the synagogue outnumbered.

There are over 170 "Sensitive Urban Areas", better known as "no go" zones, in France.  A "no go" zone means that if one calls the police from there, they don't go. The area is run and policed by Islamic law.  There are several of these areas around Nice.  In spite of this, the Muslims around here seem to be laying a bit low.

Charlie Hebdo was back on the newsstand this week, operating out of borrowed offices and running on donations.  Across Europe, the January 14 edition sold out in mere moments.  Charlie pulled no punches.  They put Mohammed on the cover.  And in case one didn't think it was Mohammed, they made it perfectly clear via every news source possible that it was.  Here's the cover:

The three gunmen are dead.  The girlfriend of one of them fled to Syria before the murders.  They'll find her eventually.