Middle-East confrontations in the centre of the Angers political summer

La trêve estivale observée dans le champ de la politique locale a été compensée par plusieurs initiatives découlant de la détérioration de la situation au Moyen-Orient. Divers appels et manifestations relatifs à la situation des Chrétiens et Yazidis d'Irak et de Syrie d'une part, aux populations palestiniennes prises entre les feux d'Israel et du Hamas d'autre part ont occupé cet été le devant de la scene angevine.

Apparently, the demonstration summoned in support of the Palestinian population in Gaza last August 22nd in Ralliement square was less attended than foreseen. While around 500 persons were there to the previous rally on August 9th, they were less than 200 last friday. Between those two dates, the Hamas, the religious armed movement settled in Gaza, recognized it was the author of the abduction and the death of three young Israelis which led later their country to retaliate against the muslim militia. Recently that one has announced that it had executed 18 Palestinian people because of the suspected support to Israel.

Nevertheless, right through, Angers, as other French cities, is the theatre of demonstrations related to the current middle-East atrocities. The massacres of Christian then Yazidi minorities in Syrian and Iraki territories by terrorists favourable to an Islamic State in Irak and Syria (Isis) led the president of the Conseil général de Maine-et-Loire, Christian Gillet, to launch an appeal for assistance to the persecuted Christians of those two states. Then the local medias reported that some Angers Muslims attended (with opportunism?) the Assumption service in the Angers cathedral. A few days later, the Angers representatives of a Yazidi community reminded publicly the dreadful fate of their co-religionists in Irak.

While the summer break comes to an end, it is possible that new demonstrations will be summoned in the weeks to come given no calming down is in sight in Irak and Syria as well as in the Gaza territory of Palestine. Already some Angers movements had, during the summer, pointed out their different analysis regarding the responsabilities in the Israel and Palestinan conflict (the Angers association "Two peoples two states" on one side, the "France Palestine Solidarité 49" on the other). The Angers decision-makers will have to monitor that the legitimate interest of some Angers inhabitants for those conflicts must not worsen and turn in the import of those conflicting debates in town.