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The Romance Of Violence
The capture of Italian killer Cesare Battisti in Brazil this weekend has divided France's left.
Author and Figaro journalist Guillaume Perrault has written a book about Battisti, who was sentenced in absentia for his part in four murders during Italy's "Years of lead" of the late 1970s-early 1980s.
Here he is on what Battisti means in France:
"The Italian left isn't at all fascinated by violence. It has completely abandoned this vision. That hasn't been the case for a certain element of the French left.... it is easy to mystify things we didn't have to live through. French intellectuals are always searching for revolution by procuration: Cuba was in fashion, Maoist China too. Battisti plays that role too. The fascination for violence remains intact for some people."
Le Figaro also publishes a useful round-up of reaction to the arrest from some of the major figures on the French scene.
Interestingly, interior minister and presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy is blamed by some for his arrest, notably by the Green Party, though Ségolène Royal's spokesman noted that there might have been a coincidence between Battisti's arrest and the forthcoming election. That said, we wonder why the (left wing) government of Brazil and the (left wing) Italian government would want to assist in the electoral campaign of the (centre-right) Sarkozy.
Or it may be that Sarkozy has replaced the USA as the source for all the wrong in the world, at least for the time being.
Royal herself hasn't commented - though nor has she sacked or suspended her spokesman, a usual indicator of her disapproval. Her partner, François Hollande, made pilgrimage to Battisti in prison in 2004 when he was held for trial.
Other Socialists aren't so sympathetic to the captured terrorist. One declared himself happy with the arrest and added that he rejected this attachment to "pseudo-romantic revolutionaries" that blights France's left.
Others on the left complained that the governing party had torn up the promise former Socialist President Mitterand had made to left-wing Italian terrorists on the run in France. Mitterand allowed them to stay as long as they took no part in politics and renounced violence, whatever crimes they were accused of committing at home.
In the centre, François Bayrou said that "this man must be judged in Italy, where he has never been tried in court." Ahem: he was tried in 1993, but refused to show up to plead his case. Because of this, he forfeited his right to appeal.
On the right, the capture was greeted with less ambiguity. Centre-right UMP councillor for Paris Pierre Lellouche congratulated the police and reminded citizens that Socialist mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë wanted to give Battisti the protection of the city. "How does he propose to extend that protection now?" Lellouche demanded.
Further right, Philippe de Villiers' spokesman also wondered if there was something suspicous about the timing of the arrest. He also attacked the "romanticism" of left-wingers who "rushed to the aid of this criminal."
Jean-Marie Le Pen was tougher still, calling Battisti "a terrorist and a murderer". He noted that the fugitive is claimed by Italy's president Romano Prodi, who, as we noted above, "doesn't pass for a man of the extreme right."
He accused the celebrity leftists defending Battisti of "showing more tenderness for murderers than for their victims."
Le Figaro also carried an interview with the son of one of Battisti's victims. A boy at the time, he was crippled during the robbery that took his father's life.
