‘The Public Peace President’ Chirac Got Embarrassed. The Wave of the Unsuccessful Assassination Attempt

The first and second most important priorities for the French President Jacque Chirac, who were reelected with an overwhelming victory, were the public peace. However, the unsuccessful assassination attempt of the President at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon on the 14th, which was the French Revolution Memorial Day, at the heart of Paris, the Arc de Triomphe Square put his ‘public peace first ideology’ into shame. The President Chirac is presenting a reinforcement of public peace counter planning law, which will require as many as 9.2 billion Euro (about 10.58 trillion won).

▽Assassination attempt of the President in 40 years = The assassination attempt of the President Chirac is the first in 40 years since the secret far-right organization named OAS attempted to assassin the then President Charles de Gqulle in 1962. The French press is questioning the fact that an far-right winger Maxim Brunerie(25), who has violent inclination and mental case history, was not stopped by anyone until he approached 40 ~ 50m away from the President, who were inspecting the Army riding an open car, and shot one bullet from his 22 caliber rifle. What is more, the person who stopped Mr. Brunerie first was a spectator, not a policeman.

There was a happening in the French House of Representatives recently that a person from the audience came close to the podium while the Prime Minister Jean-Marie Le Pien’s speech and gave him a trophy saying, ‘to the best Prime Minister.’ The public peace officers calmed themselves down saying, “What if the person was a terrorist or the object was a weapon or a bomb….”

The President Chirac didn’t know that he was almost assassinated and was reported later on and shocked, “Really?”, but got his composure back according to the concerned people.

▽Condition of the culprit = Mr. Brunerie was transferred to a mental patients’ facility right after arrest and receiving a mental check up. He talks wildly and saying, “I wanted to change the world,” and “I wanted to kill the President and end my life, too."

The Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that Mr. Brunerie was a ‘armed soldier’ of ‘the GUD,’ which was a far-right student organization that related to the Neo Nazi skinhead group, and he was famous even among the skinheads for his immoderate violent inclination. The police swooped upon Mr. Brunerie’s resident located south of Paris, Ivry, but could not find anything related to organized terror. The neighbors said Mr. Brunerie was “a shy young man.”

Jei-Gyoon Park phark@donga.com