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French press review 16 September 2017

London under "critical" terror alert, as train bomb injures 30 and millions expected to pack French museums on national heritage week-end.

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We start with reactions to Friday's terrorist attack on a packed London underground train which left 29 people injured.

Several papers report that the explosion sparked a "wall of fire" that left passengers with burns and caused a stampede of panicking people in which some were trampled.

Le Parisien underlines that this was the Britain's fifth terror attack in six months.

While no one has been arrested for the blast, the paper says that a massive man hunt is underway as counter terrorism experts had hastened the pace of their investigations to find those responsible for it.

Libération says that the home-made explosive device abandoned on the seat of metro had a timer and failed to detonate as planned, which limited the number of people wounded and the gravity of their injuries.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, according le Figaro. The publication reports that Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to raise the terrorism alert from severe to critical suggests that another attack by the terrorist organization is highly probable.

  

According to l'Est Eclair, Friday's London Metro bomb went off on the same day a foot soldier on patrol in Paris, was assaulted by a knife-wielding man, serving as a grim reminder that Western nations haven't finished with terrorism.

From the publication's point of view, there is nothing to show that such attacks are likely to cease within the foreseeable future which is why countries like France cannot afford to drop their guard. Irrespective of the measures put in place, l'Est Eclair argues, it would be an illusion to think that zero risk exists. 

 

And for Le Courrier Picard, it is worth noting that the terrorist prepared his plot meticulously and deliberately left the explosive device on the loaded train to inflict carnage and cause trauma at a dimension which would remain in the minds of survivors and witnesses for the rest of their lives. 

This is heritage week-end in France, the period when you can walk into one of 17,000 museums and prestigious palaces and homes without disbursing a dime.

Le Figaro says it expects one fifth of France's citizens to be part of the tradition which it describes as a plebiscite and a declaration of love of the people for their nation.

Yet according to the right-wing publication, two days is unfortunately y too short to reconcile France with itself.

Without yielding to the sirens of the past it argues it is by relating with the past that France will rediscover the spirit and pace of the grandeur that made her one of the most loved countries in the world.

 

 

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