Solemnity and outrage mark French media coverage of the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing that Hassan Diab is accused of masterminding.
On the 30th anniversary of the Oct. 3 attack that killed four and injured dozens, French daily Le Monde covered a ceremony of remembrance.
“The republic will not forget - not the faces of the fallen, not the suffering of the survivors,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said. “The inquiry has been difficult, but justice is near.”
A 2007 piece in French daily Le Figaro did not explicitly name Diab but reported that the “perpetrator” of the bombing “lives peacefully in Canada ... and French anti-terorrorism organizations intend to interrupt his retirement.”
Le Figaro said that “a man of Middle Eastern descent, 1.7-metres tall” was seen parking the motorcycle in which the synagogue bomb was concealed. Police created a composite sketch that ran with the article.
In the days before the attack, the suspect had hired a prostitute and was caught trying to steal electrical wire cutters, Le Figaro said, punctuating that sentence with an exclamation mark.
French media also revisited remarks taken as anti-Semitic that a French politician made hours after the bombing.
Then-Prime Minister Raymond Barre had condemned the “odious attack targeting Israelis, that hit innocent French people walking down Rue Copernic.”
