REPLAY: France pays homage to victims of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in Israel with national ceremony led by Macron
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05:43 The Invalide is indeed too small a place,
05:48 four months to the day after.
05:52 [SPEAKING FRENCH]
05:56 68 million French people who are grieving
06:01 after the attacks of last October 7th.
06:07 68 million French people grieving
06:15 for the 42 citizens who lost their lives,
06:20 68 million grieving for the four French hostages
06:25 that have been freed, 68 million grieving
06:30 for the three hostages that are still held prisoner,
06:34 and we are working for their liberation every day.
06:38 They are represented here by the three empty chairs.
06:42 [SPEAKING FRENCH]
06:46 The faces of those tortured on the 7th of October
06:54 are a mirror to us.
06:57 We see ourselves in their faces,
07:02 what we were, what we had been at their age,
07:07 and what they will never be able to live now.
07:11 Many of them were not even 20 years old.
07:15 Noya, Nathan, will never be 20 years old.
07:20 We see their faces, the questions that they had
07:24 as young people about God, life, the world,
07:28 their doubts, their irreverence, their questions,
07:34 their smiles full of promises, their burgeoning adolescence.
07:41 Some were under 30.
07:45 Avidan, Valentin, Naomi will never be 30 years old.
07:50 They were full of dreams.
07:55 They were studying law, computer sciences.
07:58 They were dreaming of a career, of great love.
08:02 They were planning to become engaged.
08:08 They loved their guitar.
08:13 In the Mediterranean Sea, they had ideals and visions of a better world.
08:18 They were full of life and vigor.
08:22 Céline, Marc, Elias will never grow old.
08:26 They worked hard to build their projects.
08:33 They had friends. Some of them had children.
08:41 Some of them were older, with the gray hair.
08:44 Camilla, Jean-Paul, Yaffa.
08:47 No more gray hairs will come.
08:50 We still hear their voices in Hebrew and in French.
08:54 Their voices sometimes broken with tenderness.
08:59 They were transmitting the wisdom that they had learned
09:06 from their own grandparents.
09:08 We see their faces now.
09:11 Lives interrupted.
09:13 Family stories are suddenly broken apart.
09:21 And around the hills of Jerusalem,
09:25 we hear the cries of people,
09:29 mixed with cries from people in France as well.
09:34 Last 7th of October, at the dawn of the day,
09:39 the unspeakable happened.
09:41 Reaching out from the black depths of history,
09:44 it was 6 in the morning at the Nova Festival,
09:47 just a few kilometers from Gaza Strip.
09:50 Under the pale sky, 24 hours of festivities had just concluded.
10:00 The young people were dancing there,
10:02 and they did not know that the jaws of death were about to close upon them.
10:07 Cars, motorcycles, loaded with weapons, fell upon them.
10:15 It was 6 o'clock in the morning,
10:17 and Hamas launched a surprise attack,
10:21 a massive and odious attack,
10:24 the biggest anti-Semitic massacre of our century.
10:31 And mixed in with the music of the festival,
10:37 we heard the drums of hell.
10:39 Young people were filming the joyful moments of their life,
10:45 and these films turned into moments of horror.
10:48 The sky was filled with rockets.
10:52 The infernal brigades fell upon the festival,
10:56 spread across the plains and the villages,
10:59 broke open doors, broke into homes, into bedrooms,
11:02 looked under beds.
11:04 Fires were set.
11:06 There were cries of killing.
11:09 There were screams.
11:11 There were people weeping,
11:13 and then there was silence.
11:15 Silence like a shroud.
11:18 Silence.
11:22 Silence in the face of the unspeakable.
11:28 Consideration facing barbarism.
11:33 Tears facing this savage attack.
11:39 Barbarism.
11:41 Burning, breaking, abusing, killing,
11:47 tearing families apart,
11:49 killing a young girl because she was slowing things down,
11:55 grabbed a child in pajamas right out of the arms of her fathers.
12:00 After the joy and the freedom of a festival came this horror,
12:09 and we think about events in the Bataclan in Paris,
12:12 in Nice, in Strasbourg,
12:14 the barbarism of these attacks
12:16 that takes the life of young people as they have barely begun to live.
12:24 They are ready to hear of Palestinian suffering,
12:28 and yet this barbary seems to mask that.
12:34 This is the barbary that feeds on anti-Semitism
12:37 and that spreads anti-Semitism.
12:39 It seems to annihilate and destroy.
12:43 And nonetheless,
12:48 there were certain symbols of hope and light
12:53 in the eyes of the night.
12:54 Young people who sent a last message to their parents,
12:57 messages of love and thanks.
12:59 A man who threw himself over a grenade
13:03 to save the life of his two children,
13:05 costing him his own life,
13:07 and the sacrifice of another father
13:10 who wasn't on the site of the attack,
13:13 but when he heard from his daughter by telephone,
13:17 he immediately jumped in his car to go find her
13:22 and found death instead.
13:23 Barbarism faced with light,
13:29 because those who kill out of hatred
13:32 will always find those who are ready to die for love.
13:39 And always they will see
13:42 that those who were touched by the 7th of October
13:48 in their very flesh from Montpellier to Tel Aviv
13:51 from Bordeaux to the Negev desert,
13:53 the French citizens who died on the 7th of October
13:57 were not all born in France
14:01 and they did not die under French skies,
14:06 but they were French.
14:08 French because they carried a love for France in their hearts,
14:15 because they held ideals and values that are universal,
14:22 from France because they loved our country with an ardent love.
14:27 They learned our language,
14:29 they loved our culture and lived with it constantly.
14:33 And today at the Invalides, in this courtyard,
14:36 we welcome family members,
14:40 some of whom had never been here before,
14:43 and their faces are with us.
14:45 Let us remember their lives.
14:49 They have left their mark on our lives for all time.
14:58 Their destinies were not the only destinies
15:06 that were broken by the tornado of suffering
15:09 that is war in the Middle East.
15:12 All lives are worth life.
15:17 Victims of a terrorism against which we fight in all forms
15:25 and which has stricken us at our heart.
15:29 France welcomes our children home
15:34 and we do not forget any of our children.
15:37 We refuse separation and division.
15:41 We refuse the spirit of death, of chaos and division,
15:45 which is exactly what the terrorists hope to spread.
15:48 Never will we enable the spirit of revenge
15:53 to be nurtured within our hearts.
15:55 And in these moments of grief,
15:57 these difficult times, nothing will ever divide us.
16:03 France will remain united for ourselves and for others,
16:10 united to look beyond the differences in our own nation,
16:16 united in sharing the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians
16:22 and to stand by all those who seek peace and security in the Middle East.
16:30 Betarahim, we say in Israel, to speak of a cemetery,
16:40 the house of life,
16:45 for those who remain, their lives will be made of absence,
16:56 a different life, a different world, full of remembrance.
17:03 And we now must live with this grief,
17:09 not as a victory over death,
17:12 but as an invitation to find room for those who have lost their lives in our life today.
17:22 Each of these victims reminds us that their lives, our lives,
17:28 are worth constantly fighting against hatred,
17:31 against the growing anti-Semitism which has been growing here and in the Middle East,
17:38 because nothing can justify or excuse terrorism. Nothing.
17:45 So we stand here today, four months after,
17:52 with these faces and these empty chairs,
17:57 filled with sadness,
18:01 standing with the families who have lost precious members,
18:06 full of affection for those who are tending to their wounds
18:14 and refusing to yield until we can bring the hostages home.
18:20 We have very mixed feelings at this moment as we stand here together,
18:28 because as we look at these faces, we know
18:32 that we are not only 68 million people today,
18:37 but many, many more.
18:42 A people in love with liberty, fraternity, dignity.
18:52 A people who will not forget these victims, ever.
19:01 Vive la République, vive la France.
19:06 France, France, France.
19:11 You were just listening to the French President Emmanuel Macron
19:21 at a commemoration which Paris held for the victims of the terror attacks in Israel.
19:29 On the 7th of October, 42 French citizens were killed by Hamas
19:36 and three remained hostage in Gaza.
19:40 That is why you had three empty chairs as the people were standing.