France the Bombs of September

Wednesday is a busy day for the Tati discount store on the Rue de Rennes in Paris. School is out that afternoon, and mothers, particularly those with modest incomes, flock to Tati with their children in search of bargains. Thus the sidewalk in front of the store was bustling last week at 5:28 p.m., when two black-mustachioed men in a black BMW drove past. As the car slowed down, the man on the passenger side got out and dropped a package into a trash can near the front door. He quickly hopped back into the car and rode off. A few seconds later an explosion shattered the happy sounds of shoppers. "There was simply a noise, very loud, then the screams of the people," recalled a witness. In an instant the sidewalk was littered with the bodies of the dead, the dying and the wounded. Shattered glass, bits of clothing and pieces of human flesh turned the scene into a grotesque tableau of gore and destruction. The toll: five dead and 53 wounded.

The explosion outside Tati was the fifth terrorist bombing to hit the French capital in ten days. Only two days earlier, a violent blast in the driver's license section of Paris police headquarters had killed one and injured 51. Like that attack and others earlier at a post office, a cafeteria and a pub, the Tati outrage appeared to be the work of the Committee for Solidarity with Arab and Middle Eastern Political Prisoners (C.S.P.P.A.). The shadowy organization, apparently made up of Marxist Maronite Christians and based in Lebanon, has claimed responsibility for ten Paris bombings over the past nine months, leaving ten dead and 257 wounded.

The explosions dramatically darkened the mood of the City of Light and its people. "For the second time in my life," said an 84-year-old woman, "Paris is a city under enemy occupation." Everywhere there were police and military troops, checking parcels, inspecting shoulder bags, patrolling public toilets. At entrances to shops, subways and theaters, uniformed officers demanded, "Your papers, please." Along the Avenue des Champs Elysees, the grandest of the city's boulevards, crowds were thin, and sidewalk cafes were half empty. Long, snaking lines at the cinemas shortened. Tables at some of Paris' most exclusive restaurants sat idle. Parisians, who normally consider the city's streets and cafes to be extensions of their apartments, were suddenly clinging close to home.

The nervous public mood was reflected in the headlines that hit newsstands. PARIS PANIC! screamed Le Matin. PARIS-BEIRUT, read Le Parisien Libere. Over the next few days the parallel with the Middle East nightmare was eerily driven home as militant Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims fired on French peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon, and Colonel Christian Goutierre, 54, the French military attache in Beirut, was gunned down. Responsibility for the assassination was claimed by the Revenge and Justice Front, a group that has no known links to the C.S.P.P.A.